Roselyn Potter
by bleeding-roses-16
Summary: Roselyn Potter is Harry's younger sister, and is very glad to be able to go to Hogwarts this year. She only wants to make friends, learn magic and be with her brother, but when the Chamber of Secrets is opened and students start getting attacked and her brother is being blamed, she's a little afraid that her first year at Hogwarts will also be her last. Now being updated.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Well, because of all the recent fav's that have been made, i have gained some motivation and am currently updating this story to take out as much of the book parts as possible. If anyone wants to be my Beta, please PM me.**

Roselyn Potter was NOT having a good summer. Sure, it had started out great because her older brother Harry had been back from his first year at Hogwarts and she got to hear all about his adventures with his friends and all about the classes he took, but there were far more downsides to the summer. First of all, her cousin Dudley was also back from his first year at Smeltings, and while he was treating she and her brother like the plague, he still had no qualms with getting them in trouble with his parents. Second of all, she couldn't actually look through all of her brothers books again to prepare for the upcoming school year since she would also be attending, not to mention she really wanted a good look at his broom and the photo album he had of their parents, but their Uncle Vernon had locked everything her brother had up in the cupboard under the stairs. Finally, Harry's pet owl Hedwig, who had also been padlocked in her cage, would not stop screeching at all hours of the day. While Rose felt badly for the poor owl, she also disliked the amount of tension and yelling it created in the house.

Every morning, at varying times, Hedwig would start screeching her head off while beating her wings furiously against the cage which promptly caused Uncle Vernon to wake up and start screaming at Harry, who would try (and most times fail) to yell back for the next 2 hours or so. Then she and her brother would have to tread carefully around their Aunt and Uncle until they calmed down a bit unless they wanted to be given an ungodly amount of chores to do for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, she just knew the summer was about to get worse, it usually did around Harry's birthday and today was Harry's 12th birthday. She was currently in the kitchen with Harry, frantically trying to pull together a breakfast that was acceptable to their Aunt Petunia, but that would also please their Uncle since Hedwig had once again started screeching early that morning, waking everyone up a good two and a half hours earlier than anyone, even the Potter siblings, wanted to be.

Just as Harry was done with the eggs and bacon and Rose was finishing up setting the table, their Uncle came storming in, his face was slowly becoming redder as he huffed and puffed, clearly trying to calm down. Their Aunt and Cousin came in shortly after, Dudley taking his own seat while their Aunt Petunia hovered over them to inspect the food, making sure they hadn't burnt, spilt, broken, or otherwise harmed the food, her kitchen, or the cooking utensils.

Rose made sure to fetch her Uncle his coffee before helping Harry to serve everyone. Rose made sure to keep her head down so she didn't have to watch her Uncle and Cousin eat since it really was disgusting and while her Uncle had far more table manners than Dudley did, when he was furious as he was currently, only 3/4ths of his food made it into his mouth, the other bit of his hanging off his beard.

To Rose's surprise, it took a few moments before her Uncle finally slammed his fist on the table, startling her and her Aunt. Dudley proceeded to ignore them as he worked at putting as much food in his mouth as he could and Harry just sighed in resignation.

"Enough is enough! If that bird of yours continues to make such a racket at all hours of the day, it'll have to go!" he yelled, pointing at the ceiling as though to prove a point.

"She's only bored! If you'd just let me-" Harry started, but was cut off by their Uncle slamming his hand on the table again.

"No! I won't have it!" He snarled.

"She's used to flying outside though! If I could just let her out at night she'd stop." Harry tried once again to explain, Rose just sighed and finished her own breakfast, swiftly stuffing some toast in her pocket to give to Hedwig while everyone was distracted.

"May I be dismissed?" She asked, trying to stop the topic from escalating or to keep from having to hear any more of the argument, unfortunately it didn't have the desired effect and her Uncle turned to her, face still red,

"Absolutely not!" He snapped before turning back to Harry. "I know exactly what'll happen if that owl is let out, you'll decide to write your freaky little friends and I'm not having it!"

Just then, Dudley belched loudly, grabbing everyone's attention.

"I want more bacon!" He half whined, half demanded.

"There's more in the frying pan sweetums." Aunt Petunia said, her hands fluttering about as they soothed her son's hair back some before starting to put more eggs and toast also on his plate. "We must feed you up before you go back to school, I don't trust their food."

Rose shook her head in disbelief, she never would have thought that someone could gain so much weight just off of school food, but Dudley had severely surprised her. He had always been a big kid, always on the obese side, but he had enough exercise trying to catch her brother and beat him up or anyone else that disagreed with him or his friends that he was still able to move without looking like he was going to kill over with every step but when they had picked him up from smeltings school, Rose had been appalled to see that he had put on so much weight that his bottom drooped over either side of the dining room chair. Clearly, the school had wonderful food or very fatty food, Dudley loved it either way apparently.

She came out of her thoughts when she caught Harry responding to Dudleys demand for the frying pan with a "Say the magic word," and about dropped her head to the table, cringing. Sure enough, Dudley squeaked in fright and fell sideways off his chair, shaking the whole kitchen, Aunt Petunia gasped and went pale, looking as though she was going to faint, and Uncle Vernon, who had started to regain his natural coloring when past his usual angry red face and right into furious purple.

"I just meant please!" Harry quickly tried to correct himself, but the damage had been done.

"WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT USING THAT WORD IN THIS HOUSE!" their Uncle thundered, causing Rose to whimper and slide down in her chair, she really hated when her Uncle got this mad, it usually meant bad things for the Potter siblings. "HOW DARE YOU THREATEN DUDLEY!" roared Uncle Vernon, pounding the table with his fist.

"I just -"

"I WARNED YOU! I WILL NOT TOLERATE MENTION OF YOUR ABNORMALITY UNDER THIS ROOF!"

Harry stared from his purple-faced uncle to his pale aunt, who was trying to heave Dudley to his feet, then finally to his sister who was looking down at her plate and shaking her head slightly.

"All right," said Harry, "all right. . . "

Uncle Vernon sat back down, huffing and puffing and for all the world looking like he would charge if either of them made the slightest wrong movement. If he had been bad last summer after they had found out about being a Witch and Wizard, it was nothing to this summer. Now that Harry actually had a year of Magical schooling under his belt, their family had been treating them as though they would spontaneously combust, or somehow infect them with their freakishness.

Rose knew that Harry missed Hogwarts and couldn't wait to be back by the way he would constantly talk about it. She simply couldn't wait to go and experience it all for herself. She had been devastated when Harry got to go, but she had to wait with the Dursleys for the whole school year, the only highlights of being left with her Aunt and Uncle by herself was that her cousin (who was her biggest tormentor) was also gone away, her teacher Mr. Lupin had also been a wonderful person she had met, and of course her Penpal Ginny Weasley who's older brother was Harry's best friend Ron. The two girls had both been happy to get to know each other and commiserate on how excited they were to be going to Hogwarts the next year together.

Unfortunately, while she had been treated much better than usual while the two older boys had been away at school, Harry and Rose were back to being treated worse than dirt.

Rose realized she must have zoned out for a moment only to tune back in when her Uncle cleared his throat pointedly, drawing everyone's attention back to him.

"Now, as we all know, today is a very important day."

Rose just sighed, 'talking again about that blasted business dinner.' She thought irritably. He'd been talking of nothing else for two weeks. Some rich builder and his wife were coming to dinner and Uncle Vernon was hoping to get a huge order from him. She glanced over at Harry and wince when she saw him look up in disbelief. 'Oh Harry, you forgot about the dinner didn't you.' She thought sadly, he was about to get his hopes crushed. And sure enough, her Uncle continued.

"This could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career, " she winced when she saw Harry's face fall dejectedly as he pushed his plate away half-heartedly

"I think we should run through the schedule one more time," said Uncle Vernon, ignoring the muted groans that Rose, Harry, and Dudley all had. Even Dudley was tired of going through the routine to the point that he was starting to voice it.

"We should all be in position at eight o'clock. Petunia, you will be -."

"In the lounge," said Aunt Petunia promptly, "waiting to welcome them graciously to our home."

"Good, good. And Dudley."

"I'll be waiting to open the door." Dudley put on a foul, simpering smile. "May I take your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason."

"Excellent, Dudley," praised Uncle Vernon as Aunt Petunia started cooing over her son.

The siblings gave each other similar exasperated and disgusted looks, straightening up and faces going blank when they were rounded on by their Uncle, demanding what their answer was.

"We'll be in our bedroom, making no noise and pretending we're not there," said Harry and Rose together, tonelessly.

This continued for several minutes, their Uncle going through every little bit of information that could possible (and probably wouldn't) be relevant for the dinner, forcing the two siblings to continue repeating the same answer over and over. When all was said and done, he stood up and announced, "Right - I'm off into town to pick up the dinner jackets for Dudley and me. And you two," he snarled at Rose and Harry. "You stay out of your aunt's way while she's cleaning."

Harry quickly left through the back door, Rose hot on his tail. It was a brilliant, sunny day and would have been perfect to celebrate Harry's birthday if their Uncle hadn't ruined it with his dumb dinner party. When they two took a seat on the garden bench, Rose pulled out a birthday card that she had hand drawn for him with a picture of him blowing out candles on a cake and handed it to him. While he looked the card over, she quietly sang him happy birthday.

Harry looked over to his sister and gave her a small smile.

"Happy Birthday Harry," She said sadly.

"Thanks Rosie," He said equally sad. Rose frowned somewhat angrily down at her hands, wondering why none of their friends had written to them yet. She knew that Ron had promised to ask if the two could come and stay with his family during the summer, but had never even written. Ginny had also seemed to stop writing once the summer had started, which had seemed really odd because she had been so enthusiastic about writing to her during the school year.

The two sat in silence for a few moments before Harry jerked upright suddenly, his eyes narrowing onto the bush in front of them causing Rose to look strangely at him.

"What is it?" She asked, looking between Harry and the bush.

"Didn't you see that?" He whispered, leaning closer. Rose looked hard at the bush, but she couldn't see anything, so she shook her head.

Rose looked around and saw Dudley waddling over to them. She groaned, murmured to Harry that she was going to go grab her art things, and quickly left the backyard, skirting around Dudley who ignored her as he seemed to have his beady eyes set on Harry. She quickly made her way up to her and Harry's bedroom and started to look for her art things. Once she had them all and was getting ready to start drawing, she heard Dudley squeal for Aunt Petunia, and groaned.

'Why today?' she wondered as she put her things back away. She came downstairs to see that Aunt Petunia was lecturing Harry about his abnormality and that he was going to regret doing whatever it was he did before giving him a humongous list of chores to do. Unfortunately, she didn't duck away fast enough and Aunt Petunia caught sight of her as well.

"And don't think you're not going to do anything today either!" She snapped and rattled off a slightly smaller list of things to do, such as clean the bathrooms, vacuum the rooms, dust the hallway pictures, clean the kitchen and help cook dinner.

Rose grumbled furiously under her breath at the unfairness, after all she had no part in whatever Harry had said or done to Dudley. She knew that her brother was upset that his friends hadn't written to him, that he wasn't having a semi-good birthday, but he should have known not to get them in trouble today of all days.

Thirty minutes until the Masons were to arrive, Aunt Petunia called them both into the kitchen to eat a small meal of bread and cheese before shooing them upstairs. After a quick threat from their uncle, they quietly slipped into their room, closed the door, and went to collapse on their bunk bed, only to find that someone was already sitting on it.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Because i forgot the disclaimer last time, i'm going to add it here for the whole story.**

 **Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Harry Potter or any of the familiar characters or places in this story. while i am flattered to those who think i do own it, this wonderful world is in the rightful ownership of JK Rowling.**

Roselyn had to clamp her hand to her mouth to keep from screaming out in surprise, while next to her, Harry inhaled sharply in surprise. The little creature on the bottom bunk was obviously magical because Rose had never heard of it before. It was humanoid with large bat-like ears and humongous green eyes, but he was short and came only to about her waist. The trio stared at each other for a few moments in surprise and it took hearing a knock on the door to snap them out of it.

The little creature slid off the bed and bowed low, his long nose almost brushing the floor as his ears flopped forward before he looked back up with them, reverence shining in his eyes.

"Uh, hello…" Harry spoke nervously, clearly unsure what to say or do. The little creature lit up at the greeting and started to speak in a high-pitched voice that made Rose cringe, just knowing that the voice would probably carry downstairs and if there was a lull in conversation they would hear him.

"Harry and Roselyn Potter! So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir and miss... Such an honor it is . . . ."

"Th-thank you," said Harry, edging along the wall sinking into his desk chair, next to Hedwig, who was asleep in her large cage. "Who are you?"

"Dobby, sir. Just Dobby. Dobby the house-elf," said the creature.

"Oh - really?" said Harry. Roselyn moved so she was standing behind Harry's chair, looking at Dobby with wide, wary eyes. She didn't know why any magical creature would come in their room like this, and she knew nothing about what House-elves could or couldn't do and wasn't sure she trusted an unknown in her room.

"Er, not to be rude or anything, but right now's not really a good time for a visit." Harry told the elf, looking apprehensively at their door where their Aunts high pitched laugh could be heard. The elf's eyes dimmed and he hung his head in disappointment.

"Harry!" Roselyn hissed in his ear, she didn't know who he was and she was wary of him, but she didn't like the idea of hurting his feelings either. "You hurt his feelings!"

"Not that I'm not pleased to meet you," said Harry quickly, "but, er, is there any particular reason you're here?"

"Oh, yes, sir," Dobby said earnestly, perking up at being able to continue, but looking unsure as to what to say. "Dobby has come to tell you, sir ... it is difficult, sir ... Dobby wonders where to begin . . . ."

"Sit down," said Harry politely, pointing at the bed. To their horror, the elf burst into very loud, very dramatic tears.

"S-sit down!" he wailed. "Never ... never ever. . . "

Rose and Harry both cringed away in unison and sent apprehensive looks to the door again as the voices downstairs faltered before Rose moved to kneel next to Dobby and hesitantly put her arm around him to try and sooth him, hopping to calm him down enough to quiet down.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or anything." Harry whispered frantically, trying to back track.

"Offend Dobby! Dobby has never been asked to sit down by a wizard – like an equal!" he choked out, looking at Harry in completed adoration. Rose had a feeling that Harry had just earned a worshiper for life with the way Dobby was looking at him. As he started to calm down, Rose managed to usher him onto the bed.

"Well, obviously you haven't met many decent wizards." Harry pointed out, trying to cheer him up. Rose thought it had worked when Dobby started to shake his head before he froze, a look of terror crossing his face before he jumped off the bed and onto the desk to start banging his head furiously on the window.

"Bad Dobby! Bad, bad Dobby!" he shouted, causing Hedwig to wake up with a loud, angry screech and started beating her wings widly against the bars of her cage. The siblings moved at the same time, Harry leaping over to grab Dobby, hissing at him to be quiet, while Rose moved to Hedwig, sushing her gently and lightly stroking her feathers to help calm her down.

Once everything was quiet again Rose turned to the duo on the bed and asked Dobby, "What was that for?"

"Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, Miss, so Dobby had to punish himself." He answered, his eyes slightly crossed from the repeated trauma to the head.

"Your family?" Harry asked in confusion, prompting Dobby to explain some more.

"The wizard family Dobby serves… Dobby is a house-elf, bound to serve one house and one family forever, unless Dobby is given clothing. But Dobby's family will not give him clothing…" He trailed off. Rose crossed over to them and sat down cross legged in front of them.

"So, do they know about you being here?" Harry asked. Going by Dobby's shudder, Rose would guess not.

"Oh no, sir, no… Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew…" He trailed off and Rose bristled in anger at the thought of the abuse this poor creature went through.

"But if you shut your ears in the door then they'll notice you did something wrong." Harry said, his eyebrow's furrowing at Dobby.

Dobby shook his head sadly, "Dobby doubts it, sir. Dobbys is always punishing himself for something or another. They lets Dobby get on with it, they even remind Dobby to do extra punishments sometimes."

Rose hissed in anger, furious that anyone would treat another being that way, regardless of if they are human or not.

"That's not fair! You should be able to leave!" she told him. Dobby shook his head again, his big teary eyes looking at her

"A house-elf must be set free, miss. And Dobby's family will never set Dobby free, Dobby will serve Dobby's family until he dies." Rose's eyebrows furrowed while Harry stared at the elf in astonishment.

"You mean the thing with the clothes you said earlier?" She asked. Dobby nodded, plucking at his current outfit that Rose had noticed was an old dirty pillowcase.

"Yes. To free a House-elf, you must give them clothes."

"But you must handle clothes all the time!" Harry pointed out. Dobby nodded,

"Yes, Dobby does do laundry, but Dobby must have the clothes handed to him directly, from masters hands to Dobby's hands." He clarified for the siblings who were staring at him in disbelief.

"Wow, and I thought we had it bad staying here for a few weeks each summer." Harry said, looking around their room. "This makes the Dursleys sound almost human. Cant we help you?"

Immediately Dobby dissolved into wails of gratitude, making Rose wish Harry had kept his mouth shut and just moved off the topic.

"Shhhh, Please be quiet, you'll get us into trouble if the Dursleys hear you!" Harry whispered frantically as Rose hopped up from the floor and ran over to the door to listen for their Uncle.

"Harry Potter asks if he can help Dobby… Dobby has heard of Harry Potters greatness, but of your goodness, Dobby never knew…" Rose turned to stare in amusement as her brother blushed a rather impressive shade of red while shaking his head frantically.

"Whatever you've heard is a load of rubbish. I'm not even the smartest in my year, that's Hermione, she –" He cut himself off abruptly though, hurt crossing his face briefly at the thought of his friend that hadn't written to him all summer.

"Harry Potter is humble and modest," said Dobby reverently, once again starring at Harry with adoring eyes. "Harry Potter speaks not of his triumph over He-Who- Must-Not-Be-Named -"

"Voldemort?" said Harry.

Dobby clapped his hands over his floppy ears and moaned, "Ah, speak not the name, sir! Speak not the name!"

"Sorry" said Harry quickly. "I know lots of people don't like it. My friend Ron -"

He stopped again, another look of hurt crossing his face. Dobby leaned toward Harry, his already wide eyes somehow widening further.

"Dobby heard tell," he said hoarsely, "that Harry Potter met the Dark Lord for a second time just weeks ago ... that Harry Potter escaped yet again. "

"I don't know what you're talking about," He said quickly as Dobby's eyes suddenly shone with tears. Roselyn gave him a sideways glance before looking back at Dobby.

"Ah, sir," he gasped, dabbing his face with a corner of the grubby pillowcase he was wearing. "Harry Potter is valiant and bold! He has braved so many dangers already! But Dobby has come to protect Harry Potter and his sister, to warn them, even if he does have to shut his ears in the oven door later... Harry Potter and Roselyn Potter must not go back to Hogwarts."

There was a silence broken only by the chink of knives and forks from downstairs and the distant rumble of Uncle Vernon's voice.

"What?" Roselyn finally broke that silence, her heart finally feeling like it was beating again. There was no way she was going to miss out on going to Hogwarts, not if it meant getting out of this house, and not after all Harry had told her about it.

"W-what?" Harry stammered after her. "But I've got to go back - term starts on September first. Roselyn hasn't even been yet. It's all that's keeping us going. You don't know what it's like here. We don't belong here. We belong in your world - at Hogwarts."

"No, no, no," squeaked Dobby, shaking his head so hard his ears flapped. "Harry Potter and Roselyn Potter must stay where they is safe. They is too great, too good, to lose. If Harry Potter or Roselyn Potter goes back to Hogwarts, they will be in mortal danger."

"Why?" said Roselyn in alarm, she did not think that Hogwarts was a dangerous, despite the trouble her brother and his friends got into the previous year, she felt that everyone else who wasn't nosy had been perfectly safe.

"There is a plot, Roselyn Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year," whispered Dobby, suddenly trembling all over. "Dobby has known it for months, miss. Potters must not put themselves in peril. They is too important, miss!"

"What terrible things?" said Harry at once, being slightly demanding. "Who's plotting them?"

Dobby made a funny choking noise and then banged his head frantically against the wall.

"All right!" cried Harry, grabbing the elf's arm to stop him. "You can't tell us. I understand. But why are you warning us?" A sudden, thought seemed to strike him. "Hang on - this hasn't got anything to do with Vol - sorry - with You-Know-Who, has it? You could just shake or nod," he added hastily as Dobby's head tilted worryingly close to the wall again. Slowly, Dobby shook his head.

"Not -not He- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, sir -'

But Dobby's eyes were wide and he seemed to be trying to give Harry a hint. Roselyn gave a baffled look to Harry, seeing that he was just as lost as she was, before looking back to Dobby.

"He hasn't got a brother, has he?" Harry asked. Dobby shook his head, his eyes wider than ever.

"Well then, I can't think who else would have a chance of making horrible things happen at Hogwarts," said Harry. "I mean, there's Dumbledore, for one thing - you know who Dumbledore is, don't you?"

Dobby bowed his head.

"Albus Dumbledore is the greatest headmaster Hogwarts has ever had. Dobby knows it, sir. Dobby has heard Dumbledore's powers rival those of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named at the height of his strength. But, sir" - Dobby's voice dropped to an urgent whisper - "there are powers Dumbledore doesn't ... powers no decent wizard. . ."

And before Harry or Roselyn could stop him, Dobby bounded off the bed, seized the desk lamp, and started beating himself around the head with earsplitting yelps. A sudden silence fell downstairs.

Two seconds later Roselyn, heart thudding madly, heard Uncle Vernon coming into the hall, calling, "Dudley must have left his television on again, the little tyke!"

"Quick! In the closet!" hissed Harry, stuffing Dobby in, shutting the door, and flinging himself onto the bed while Rose threw herself into the seat at the desk and grabbed her pencil quickly to make it look like she was drawing, just as the door handle turned.

"What - the - devil - are - you – two - doing?" said Uncle Vernon through gritted teeth, stalking over to stand in the middle of both of them, clearly unsure as to which one to punish first, "You've just ruined the punch line of my Japanese golfer joke... One more sound and you'll wish you'd never been born, you two!" He stomped flat-footed from the room.

Shaking, Harry let Dobby out of the closet as Roselyn walked shakily across the room to listen at the door to make sure Uncle Vernon had indeed left.

"See what it's like here?" Harry said. "See why we've got to go back to Hogwarts? It's the only place we've got - well, I think we've got friends. "

"Friends who don't even write to Roselyn Potter or Harry Potter?" said Dobby slyly.

"I expect they've just been - wait a minute," said Harry, frowning. "How do you know out friends haven't been writing to us?"

Dobby shuffled his feet, causing Rose to look closer at him, seeming to understand where he was going with this.

"Harry Potter and Roselyn Potter mustn't be angry with Dobby. Dobby did it for the best - "

"Have you been stopping our letters?" Harry asked angrily.

"Dobby has them here, sir," said the elf. Stepping nimbly out of Harry's reach, he pulled a thick wad of envelopes from the inside of the pillowcase he was wearing. Rose could see several different handwritings on many of the letters and could even spot Ginny's quick script in the batch. Dobby blinked anxiously up at the two, obviously looking at the sheer anger that had come over Harry's face, and even Rose's temper was quickly slipping.

"Harry Potter and Roselyn Potter mustn't be angry... Dobby hoped ... if Harry Potter and Roselyn Potter thought their friends had forgotten them... Harry Potter and Roselyn Potter might not want to go back to school, sir... miss…" Harry, as usual when he was mad, wasn't listening. He made a grab for the letters, but Dobby jumped out of reach.

"Harry Potter will have them, sir, if he gives Dobby his word that he and Roselyn Potter will not return to Hogwarts. Ah, sir, this is a danger you must not face! Say you won't go back, sir!"

"No," said Harry angrily. "Give me our friends' letters!"

"Then Harry Potter and Roselyn Potter leaves Dobby no choice," said the elf sadly.

Before Harry or Rose could move, Dobby had darted to the bedroom door, pulled it open, and sprinted down the stairs. Mouth dry, stomach lurching, and heart racing, Rose sprinted out the door after Harry who had sprang after him, trying not to make a sound. Rose watched anxiously as Harry jumped the last six steps, landing catlike on the hall carpet, looking around for Dobby. Rose hovered uncertainly behind before following the other two, immediately wishing she had stayed in the bedroom because what she saw made her heart stop with terror.

Her Aunt's pudding that she had worked so diligently on all afternoon had been floating towards the ceiling and just as she heard Harry plead with Dobby, it crashed to the floor making Rose feel like she had just been sucker punched in the gut as the dish shattered and the pudding covered the windows and walls and floor while also covering Harry in it.

Rose couldn't tell if the roaring in her ears was from the screams in the dinning room, or from the pounding of her heart that she could feel in her head, but she was struggling to breath, as their Uncle stormed into the room, threatened them with something Rose couldn't comprehend in her terror, before numbly taking a mop from her Aunt.

Just as everything was starting to calm down again and Rose started to calm down, a huge owl swooped in, and dropped a letter on Mrs. Masons lap who ran screaming from the house while her husband angrily asked if this was the Dursleys idea of a joke.

Harry moved to stand shakily in front of Rose, clutching his mop for support as Rose clutched the back of his shirt in fear as their Uncle advanced on them, looking utterly demonic.

"Read it!" he hissed evilly, brandishing the letter the owl had delivered. "Go on - read it!"

Harry took it and Rose just knew they were in trouble. She was proved right when she saw that it said,

Dear Mr. Potter,

We have received intelligence that a Hover Charm was used at your place of residence this evening at twelve minutes past nine.

As you know, underage wizards are not permitted to perform spells outside school, and further spellwork on your part may lead to expulsion from said school (Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, Paragraph C).

We would also ask you to remember that any magical activity that risks notice by members of the non-magical community (Muggles) is a serious offense under section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy.

Enjoy your holidays!

Yours sincerely,

Mafalda Hopkirk

IMPROPER USE OF MAGIC OFFICE

Ministry of Magic

Roselyn looked up and started to back away slowly when she saw her Uncles furious face.

"You didn't tell us you weren't allowed to use magic outside school," said Uncle Vernon, a mad gleam dancing in his eyes.

"Forgot to mention it... Slipped your mind, I daresay..."

He was bearing down on Harry like a great bulldog, all his teeth bared. "Well, I've got news for you, boy... I'm locking you and that girl up... You're never going back to that school... never... and if you try and magic yourself out - they'll expel you! You'll never even get to see it girl!"

And laughing like a maniac, he dragged Harry and Roselyn back upstairs.

The next day, Harry and Rose watched silently as bars were fit on their windows and a whole row of locks and a cat door was placed on their door. The two were then locked in the room all day, receiving minimal amounts of food through the cat flap, and only being let out to use the bathroom twice a day.

On the second day, Rose asked Harry quietly, "Why did you get into trouble? Couldn't it have been me preforming accidental magic?"

Harry shrugged helplessly, "I dunno Rosie."

Rose swallowed dryly, "Do you think someone will come and get us? When we don't show up at school?" She asked again.

Harry just shrugged again before rolling over on his bunk so that his back was to her, cutting off all conversation.

By the third day, both siblings had taken to laying on their respective bunk and staring at nothing for the day, not speaking to each other, and trying not to move as lethargy from lack of food descended on them. The only movement they made was when their Aunt's hand appeared, pushing two bowls of canned soup into the room. Harry leapt of his bunk and quickly crossed the room to grab them. He gave her one bowl, which she slowly sipped, easily ignoring the foul taste, and watched dully as Harry gulped half of his own down in one go before pouring the rest into Hedwigs food dish.

If she had been feeling any better, Rose would have laughed at the look of utter disgust that Hedwig shot Harry.

"It's no good turning your beak up at it - that's all we've got," said Harry grimly.

Rose silently handed her bowl over to Harry, who put the empty bowls back on the floor next to the cat-flap and climbed up to lay back down on the top bunk.

Rose thought about what would happen in another four weeks, what would happen if she got her Hogwarts letter and the same thing happened to it that happened to Harry's? Would they go through the same process they did with Harry? Would someone eventually come get them? Or would they assume that she had gotten it and was coming? What would happen when they didn't show up to Hogwarts? Would someone come get them? Or would they slowly starve in the next four weeks?

As soon as she heard Harry fell asleep, Rose got up and went to her desk where her art book was and sat down to look at the pictures, she had been very unmotivated since their imprisonment and what she did draw usually came out dark and morbid. She sighed heavily, picking up a pencil to try and draw something, even if it was dark. Suddenly Rose heard the sound of a car engine and looked up curiously. She then had to stifle a scream when she saw a blue car with three red-haired boys in it. She smiled at them when she recognized the youngest.

It seemed that Ron Weasley had come to their rescue.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: still looking for a beta, but on the bright side, i think i've figured out how to end this story. please review and tell me what you think of the updated chapter.**

Chapter 3: The Burrow

Rose's mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to comprehend what she was seeing before she bolted over to Harry and started to shake him frantically.

"Harry! Harry wake up!" She hissed urgently, continuing to shake him.

"uggg, wha-? Stop it!" He moaned for a moment before his eyes snapped open to see her a few inches from his face. He yelped and pulled back.

"What are you doing Rosie?" He asked irritably.

"Ron's here." She whispered back to him, turning around and pointing to the window.

"Ron!" Harry breathed in surprise, scooting around Rose and jumping off the bed to creep over to the window. Rose followed and watched with bated breath as Harry opened up the window so they could talk through the bars.

"Ron, how did you… what the…?" Harry's mouth fell open as the full impact of what he was seeing hit him, something that Rose was still trying to wrap her mind around, because the three Weasley boys were in an old turquoise car that was Parked in midair!

"All right you two?" One of the twins asked as Ron and Harry started talking about the warning.

"We could be better." Rose admitted to him. He nodded back seriously as he shared a glance with his twin before eyeing the bars on the window with a mischievous grin.

"Well, I think we have an idea on how to bust you out of here." The one twin said.

"If the Dursleys wake up, we're dead." Harry warned them.

"No problem. Here, tie that around the bars and then step back." Said twin number two as he threw a rope to Harry who caught it and hastily tied it around the bars while Rose went to stand next to Hedwig, who was watching them all carefully and keeping still and silent.

Rose flinched at the sound of the car revving louder and louder before the bars were pulled clean out of the window. The siblings both ran back to the window as the twins backed the car up to hover as close to the window as they could get while Ron pulled the bars up into the car.

"Great, now get in." Ron said.

"But all my stuff, I can't leave it." The twins glanced at each other again before crawling quietly into the room.

"Where is it? We'll grab it." The first twin asked. Rose glanced at the door.

"It's locked in the cupbord under the stairs, but we can't get out of this room." Harry told him.

"Don't worry about it, we can get the door open." Said twin two.

"Which one are you?" Rose finally blurted out, tired of not knowing who they were. The twin gave her a toothy grin.

"I'm George, that's Fred." He told her before turning back to Harry who was watching Fred use a hairpin to pick the locks on the door. "While most wizards think this is a waste of time, we feel it's a skill worth learning, even if it's a bit slower." He continued to explain. After a few more tense moments, the door finally swung open.

"We'll get your trunk, you grab anything else you might need from your room and hand it to Ron." Fred whispered to them. Harry turned and gave Rose a quick nod to hurry her up before following the twins out.

Rose quickly grabbed her bag of cloths that she kept in the wardrobe and threw her art book and pencils into it before passing it threw the window to Ron. After Ron put her bag in the front of the car he turned to Roselyn and held his hands out to her

"Come on! Get in." Rose hesitated, looking down the window to the ground, before looking uncertainly at Ron

"But what if I fall?" she whispered just loud enough for the red headed boy to hear her. Ron blinked in surprise before smiling reassuringly at her

"I'll catch you, don't worry. On, three, okay?" Rose bit her lip and nodded reluctantly. "Alright, don't look down. One-two-three." When he got to three Rose leapt the short distance to the car and Ron caught her around the waist and hauled her in.

"Okay, you'll need to crawl into the front so we can pull Harry's trunk in." Ron told her, letting her crawl over him so she could crawl into the front seat. She turned and watched apprehensively as Fred climbed into the car first to pull the trunk in with Ron while Harry and George pushed.

"Give it one good push." Fred panted as he and Ron tried to keep the trunk up without falling. Harry and George nodded and both threw their shoulders against it, causing it to slide the rest of the way out the window and into the back seat.

"Excellent, lets go." George whispered as he hopped into the car. "Excuse me Roselyn." He said as he made to move into the drivers seat, where she was sitting. She nodded and quickly traded spots with him.

"Should we trade spots Fred?" She asked the other twin who shook his head.

"Maybe in a moment." He muttered back as he and Ron moved to give Harry some space to jump in the car, but as her brother made to climb up onto the window sill, Hedwig started to screech wildly, beating her wings angrily in her cage.

"I'VE HAD IT WITH THAT RUDDY OWL!" Came the angry voice of their uncle.

"Hedwig!" Harry exclaimed before raceing across the room to snatch her cage up before running back to the window and handing it to Ron, who gave it to Rose. Harry had just climbed back up onto the sill when their Uncle pounded on the unlocked door causing it to crash open. In a tense moment of silence, everyone froze in surprise before being shocked back to life again when Uncle Vernon let out an angry bellow and dived at Harry, managing to grab him by the ankle.

Immediately, Fred and Ron grabbed his arms and started to pull as hard as they could while George grabbed the steering wheel to keep the car from crashing into the side of the house.

"Petunia!" roared Uncle Vernon. "They're getting away! THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!"

But the two Weasley boys gave a huge tug and Harry's leg slid out of their Uncles grasp and George, who saw his chance, slammed his foot down on the gas making the car shoot toward the moon.

Rose laughed in disbelief as the three Dursleys all hung, dumbstruck, out of the window and Harry, who was obviously giddy now that they were free, called out the open window, "See you next summer!"

Everyone in the car roared with laughter for several moments, reveling in their successful break out.

"So Rose," Harry said. "I know you remember Ron but these are his older brothers, Fred, and George Weasley."

"I know, George introduced himself briefly in the room," Rose said, slightly out of breath and still in wonder at what just transpired, her heart seeming to think it was okay to start beating again.

"Good to meet the other person Ginny won't stop talking about," Fred grinned, leaving Rose to smile knowingly back at him.

"Let Hedwig out," Harry told Ron. "She can fly behind us. She hasn't had a chance to stretch her wings for ages."

George handed the hairpin to Ron and, a moment later, Hedwig soared joyfully out of the window to glide alongside them like a ghost.

"You know, that really is a helpful skill, would you be willing to teach me how to pick locks?" Rose asked the twins curiously, "Or is that a special thing?"

"'Course we can teach you!" George said, "I think everyone but mum know's how to."

The Potter siblings looked at them in surprise.

"Even Percy?" Harry questioned. Fred nodded

"Yea, it's been a bit of a family tradition, Dad learned a long time ago, then when Bill was eleven, he taught Bill, who taught Charlie, who taught Percy, who taught us and we taught Ron last year and he's going to teach Ginny this year how to. But don't tell mum, she'd flip if she knew." Rose laughed and looked to Ron

"Then maybe I'll just wait and learn with Ginny. Is that okay Ron?" She asked. Ron nodded his head, smiling at her,

"Sure, I can teach the three of you later this week." He told her before an impatient look crossed his face and he turned to Harry, "So – What's the story? What's been happening? Why haven't you been writing back?" He asked.

Harry groaned and sat back in his seat, "You wouldn't believe the summer we've had" He started, "Fisrt of all, neither of us were receiving any mail from anyone, there was this crazy house-elf named Dobby who was apparently stopping all our mail from reaching us." He told them.

"What? Why?" Ron asked, bewildered

"Dunno, all he would tell us was that he hoped that it would discourage us from going back to Hogwarts because bad things were going to happen there this year and Rosie and I needed to be safe from it. Then he tried to make us promise not to go in exchange for our mail and when I refused, he went downstairs where Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were hosting a dinner party and smashed our Aunts Pudding." He continued.

Rose nodded and pitched in, "Then Harry got a letter from the Misuse of magic department saying that this was his first warning for underage magic, and when the Dursley's found out that he couldn't actually use magic outside of school, they decided to lock us up in the bedroom. Which is when you three came in." She finished.

There was a long silence before Fred finally said, "Very fishy."

"Definitely dodgy" George agreed, "And you said the elf wouldn't even tell you who's supposed to be plotting all this stuff?"

"No, everytime he got close to letting something slip, he would start banging his head on something. All he's tell us was that it had to do with Voldemort, but not Voldemort." The brothers all shivered at the name, but otherwise ignored its use. Rose watched as the twins glanced at eachother.

"What's wrong?" She asked them.

"Well, put it this way," Fred started, "House-elves have powerful magic all of their own, but they cant actually use it without their masters permission. Our guess is that Dobby was sent to stop you from coming back to school as someone's idea of a joke. Anyone at school with a grudge against you?" He asked them

"Yes," said Harry and Ron together, instantly.

"Who?" Roselyn asked in disbelief, she didn't think anyone that weren't the Dursleys, or those being deluded by them, could dislike Harry, he was much too nice.

"Draco Malfoy," Harry explained. "He hates me."

"Malfoy?" George asked, turning around. "Lucius Malfoy's son?"

"Has to be, Malfoy's not a very common name." Harry pointed out.

"I've heard Dad talking about him," said George. "He was a big supporter of You-Know-Who."

"And when You-Know-Who disappeared," said Fred, looking between the Potters, "Lucius Malfoy came back saying he'd never meant any of it. Load of dung - Dad reckons he was right in You-Know-Who's inner circle."

Roselyn looked at the four boys, bewildered.

"Who's Draco Malfoy?" she asked. Harry turned to her and explained quickly

"He's just this boy in Ron and I's year that's a bully. He kind of makes Dudley look sweet." Rose blinked in surprise. She didn't think anyone could get meaner than Dudley. Harry turned back to the Weasleys,

"I don't know whether the Malfoy's own a house-elf," said Harry.

"Well, whoever owns him will be an old wizarding family, and they'll be rich," said Fred.

"Yeah, Mum's always wishing we had a house-elf to do the ironing," said George. "But all we've got is a lousy old ghoul in the attic and gnomes all over the garden. House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that; you wouldn't catch one in our house."

Harry was silent and Rose knew that he was doubting himself. But Rose still didn't think that Dobby was acting on anyone's orders.

"I'm glad we came to get you, anyway," said Ron. "I was getting really worried when you didn't answer any of my letters. Ginny was panicking too, Rose. We thought it was Errol's fault at first -"

"Who's Errol?" Harry asked. Rose snorted, she wouldn't be surprised if that old owl just killed over on one of his deliveries.

"Our owl. He's ancient. It wouldn't be the first time he'd collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes -"

"Who?" they both asked this time.

"The owl Mum and Dad bought Percy when he was made prefect," said Fred from the front.

"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me," said Ron. "Said he needed him."

"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer," said George, frowning. "And he has been sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in his room... I mean, there's only so many times you can polish a prefect badge."

"Do you think he's writing a friend? Or maybe a secret girlfriend?" Rose asked, only to shrink back when she got four incredulous stares.

"Percy? With a girlfriend? Who'd wanna date a stuck up prat like him?" Ron asked. Rose just shrugged and let the conversation die off.

"So, what does your Dad do at the Ministry of Magic?" Harry finally asked after a slightly awkward silence.

"It's so boring, he works in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office." He told them.

"The what?" The Potter siblings asked.

"The Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office," Ron repeated before explaining, "They basically work with anything to do with bewitching muggle things, in case they end up back in muggle hands somehow. Usually it happens when a Witch or Wizard dies and their stuff gets sold to antique shops and are bought by muggles, then when something bad happens, Dad gets called in to work it out and cover it up and all that."

Rose furrowed her eyebrows, "That doesn't sound boring, it sounds really important to keeping the statue of secrecy and everything." She said.

The twins laughed, "Try telling the minister that. Dad doesn't make much because the Minister doesn't think his job is very important and refuses to acknowledge what he does."

"That's not fair." Rose protested, gaining apriciative grins from the twins.

"But, what about this car?" Harry asked, "Isn't this illegal?"

Fred laughed. "Yeah, Dad's crazy about everything to do with Muggles; our shed's full of Muggle stuff. He takes it apart, puts spells on it, and puts it back together again. If he raided our house he'd have to put himself under arrest. It drives Mum mad."

"There's the main road." George said, pointing down at one of the roads below them. "It should only be about ten minutes now, which is just as well because it's getting light."

Rose peered out of the car at the landscape, she was impressed by the sight of the fields and trees and how they were starting to shine as the sun started to peek up over the horizon.

"We're a little way outside the village," said George. "Ottery St. Catchpole."

Lower and lower went the flying car. The edge of a brilliant red sun was now gleaming through the trees.

"Touchdown!" said Fred as, with a slight bump, they hit the ground. They had landed next to a tumbledown garage in a small yard, and the Potter siblings looked out for the first time at Ron's house.

Rose stared in awe at the house that was obviously being held up by a lot of magic because it was several stories high and very crooked, looking like they had just stuck rooms onto the house as they needed them, rather than just building one solid house. She watched as several Chickens pecked their way around the yard for a few moments.

"It's wonderful," Harry said happily, causing Ron's ears to turn pink.

"Now, we'll go upstairs really quietly," said Fred, "and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, `Mum, Ginny, look who turned up in the night!' and they'll both be all pleased to see Harry and Rose and no one need ever know we flew the car." Rose looked at them as though they lost her head, she did not think that the plan was fool proof. And if it did work then she would lose a considerable amount of respect for their mother.

"Right, come on Harry, I sleep at the top. Rose, you can stay with us until Ginny get's….. gets up…." Ron trailed off as he turned a very nasty greenish color, his eyes fixed on something behind them.

The twins and Potter siblings spun around to see Mrs. Weasley stalking across the yard, scattering chickens and looking extreamly ferocious for such a kind-faced woman.

"Ah," said Fred.

"Oh, dear," said George.

Mrs. Weasley stopped in front of them and placed her hands on her hips, her nostrils flaring as she looked closely from one guilty face to the next.

"So," she said.

"Morning, Mum," said George, in what he clearly thought was a jaunty, winning voice.

"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" said Mrs. Weasley in a deadly whisper.

"Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to -"

All three of Mrs. Weasley's sons were taller than she was, but they cowered as her rage broke over them.

"Beds empty! No note! Car gone … could have crashed … out of my mind with worry …did you care? …never, as long as I've lived…you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy …"

"Perfect Percy," muttered Fred.

"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" yelled Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred's chest. "You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job -"

To Rose, the shouting seemed to go on for hours until Mrs. Weasley finally turned on them, her attitude doing a complete 180 as she smiled fondly at them.

"It's so good to see you two again. I'm sure you must be hungry, why don't you come in and have some breakfast?" She said before turning around and striding into the house.

Rose and Harry stared at her in surprise and with no small amount of uncertainty, but moved to follow her after Ron gave them a small push to get them to follow his mum.

Once inside the house, Rose couldn't seem to look at everything close enough, while it was a bit cramped in, the house was so clearly Magic. Rose had to stand and stare at several of the clocks on the wall that all seemed to be for different things, such as telling what time it was to do certain chores, or one that had the faces of all the family on the many hands of the clock while instead of numbers, it had things like At Home, At Work, Traveling and Dire Peril on it. She also took her time examining many of the books that were on and around the mantelpiece. Some were clearly old school books of some of the older kids, while others were household magic it yourself or cookbooks.

She ignored the others while Mrs. Weasley continued to cook and looked around a little more, watching in awe as a pair of knitting needles worked on what looked like the beginning of a blanket by themselves. She curiously touched a needle and jumped back when they dropped onto the seat.

"Opps." She said guiltily before calling into the kitchen, "Mrs. Weasley? I think I accidently broke your knitting needles."

Mrs. Weasley popped her head into the livingroom where she was and smiled. "Oh, you didn't break them dear, they're charmed to stop when touched. Now, come on in and eat." She said, pointing her wand at the still needles that immediately started to float in the air again before starting to knit on their own again.

Rose made her way into the kitchen and sat down next to her brother just in time for Mrs. Weasley to tip about six sausages onto her plate as well as three pancakes and several eggs. Rose stared uncertainly at her plate, unsure if she could eat everything that had just been given to her, but dug in anyways.

"MMM, this is really good Mrs. Weasley!" She exclaimed, looking over to her brother who was shoveling as much food as he could as politely as he could, into his mouth.

"Thank you dear. Arthur and I had been worried about you two. If Ron or Ginny hadn't have gotten a letter by Friday we were going to come get you ourselves." She told her before shooting her son's another dirty look, "But really, anyone could have seen you flying in that car."

With a flick of her wand, the dishes started to clean themselves, causing Rose to stop eating for a moment to watch in envy at the tedious chore turned easy via magic before finishing her food off.

"It was cloudy, Mum!" said Fred.

"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs. Weasley snapped.

"They were starving them, Mum!" said George.

"And you!" said Mrs. Weasley, but her tone was softer and she immediately started giving Harry some more toast, showing that she had heard them.

Rose was then distracted from her food by an abrubt squeal and spun around to see Ginny standing there in a long nightdress.

"Roselyn?! You're here!" She squealed.

"Ginny!" Rose greeted happily back, jumping out of her chair and meeting the other girl in a tight hug.

"When did you get here?" Ginny asked curiously.

"Harry and I got here about an hour ago." Rose replyed, at the mention of her brother, Ginny's eyes slid over to where Harry was sitting. Harry smiled and gave her a small wave, making her go red before she turned around and raced up the stairs again.

"Thank's for breakfast Mrs. Weasley." Rose said, giving her brother a quick grin before following Ginny up the stairs. She followed Ginny up to the third landing where she was let into the room quickly before Ginny closed the door with a snap.

Ginny spun around to face Roselyn, her face still a brilliant red color.

Rose smiled at her "I don't know about you, but I think someone has a crush on my brother."

Ginny groaned and buried her head in her hands.

"I'm sorry. That was so embarrassing." Rose smiled in amusement at her.

"So do you? Have a crush on Harry, I mean." Ginny nodded her head shyly and Rose just laughed, "If you want to catch his attention then, you're going to have to learn how to speak to him without turning red and running away every time."

"Don't you find it strange that I have a crush on your brother?" Ginny asked, looking at her strangely, "I know I think it's weird when someone likes one of my brothers."

Rose just shrugged, "Well, sure I think it's odd, he's my brother, but I also know that girls are going to have a crush on him. I just don't want people to only have a crush on him because he's the boy-who-lived." She explained. Ginny nodded thoughtfully as she dropped down onto her bed.

"That makes sense. I admit that I do have a bit of a crush because of that, but I would also like to get to know him." She admitted. Rose frowned slightly before shrugging.

"Well, as long as you keep that in mind, I don't really care."

"Alright, but let's get off that topic…. For that matter let me get dressed." Rose smiled and clapped her hands

"Ohhh, let me help you pick something out!" she said.

"Alright, but I don't have that many choice's" Ginny just laughed and nodded. Rose just shrugged.

"So? They've got to better then what I've got." She said gesturing to her cloths that had once been Dudleys. Ginny wrinkled up her nose at the cloths that hung limply off of Rose's body.

"Where did you get those? They look awful on you. Not to mention they look like boy cloths." Rose laughed sardonically

"They're my cousin Dudley's from when he was seven. Harry and I don't ever get new cloths." Ginny frowned a moment before cheering up

"Hey, why don't you wear some of my stuff? Then you can get new things when we go to Diagon Ally." Ginny suggested. Rose brightened up.

"Really? Thanks Ginny!" They riffled threw Ginny's cloths for a moment when Rose found a brown pinafore with a white blouse that she thought would go great with Ginny's eyes and found a dark blue pinafore with a light blue blouse for herself that Ginny said she could borrow. By the time they were both dressed they could hear the boys coming up the steps. To Rose's amusement, Ginny got excited at the chance to see Harry again and opened the door to peek out. Though it seemed that he and Ron had just reached the landing, when Harry looked at her, Ginny squeaked and slammed the door shut, causing Rose to erupt into giggles.


	4. Chapter 4

**Authors note: sorry for the long delay, i recently had life happen and have been unable to work on anything. But hopefully this will be good enough for you all. thanks for staying with me.**

 **Disclaimer: really, what needs to be said? I really don't own Harry Potter.**

Chapter 4: The burrow part 2

It didn't take long for their giggles to die down. When they did, Ginny turned to Roselyn and said,

"Come on, I'll take you on a tour, but let me go get something to eat first." Rose smiled and gestured for her to lead the way.

"I'll follow you then." She told Ginny. When the two girls made it downstairs, Rose saw an older red-headed man that she assumed was Mr. Weasley.

"Morning Dad! Morning Mum!" Ginny said brightly. Both her parents smiled at her,

"Morning sweetheart." Her dad said.

"So Rose, this is my Dad Arthur, Dad, this is Roselyn Potter." She introduced as the girls sat down. Arthur blinked and looked up, when he saw Rose he smiled excitedly and shook her hand enthusiastically.

"Oh! Pleased to meet you Roselyn! I've just met your brother. We're so pleased you're staying with us." He said. Rose smiled at him.

"Pleased to meet you as well , but please, call me Rose." She said, taking a seat next to Ginny who was quickly eating what Mrs. Weasley had placed in front of her.

"Would you like anymore dear?" asked. Rose smiled but shook her head.

"No thanks Mrs. Weasley, I think you gave me enough the first time around." She said politely.

"Alright then, if you change your mind just say so." Mrs. Weasley said before getting her own plate and sitting down to eat.

"What are you girls going to do today?" Mr. Weasley asked them when he finally put the newspaper down. Rose shrugged and looked over to Ginny, who had to swallow before saying.

"I was going to give Rose the tour then I thought maybe we could go out and swim in the little river." Rose froze and shot a wide eyed look at Ginny.

"Uhhh, I don't have a swim suit." She said.

"That's okay, I have an extra one that should fit you." Ginny said as she stood up and took her plate over to the sink.

"That sounds fun. Remember to be careful!" He said before turning to Mrs. Weasley to start talking about something or another. Before Rose could listen in on what they were saying, Ginny grabbed her arm and started tugging her away.

"Okay, so that was obviously the kitchen, this is the living room." She said, gesturing to said room before quickly walking up the stairs, Rose trailing behind her. "Mom's and Dad's room is on this first landing with Percy's room and one bathroom, the twins are on the second landing, of course you already know I'm on the third with the second bathroom, we have two empty rooms on the fourth and fifth landing that belonged to Bill and Charlie and Ron is at the top." Ginny said as she led Rose back to her room. "Okay, now lets go play in the water." She said excitedly. Rose grimaced again.

"Uhh, Ginny? I can't swim." She said. Ginny blinked at her in surprise before shrugging,

"That's okay, I can teach you. And even then the waters not deep, it only comes up to about your waist in most places. So you shouldn't worry to much, if you really don't like it, we'll figure something else out okay?" She asked. Rose debated in her head for a few moments before nodding reluctantly,

"Well, it does sound nice." Ginny squealed and pulled out two plain blue one piece swim suits for them to change into. After grabbing their towles, Ginny led them out to a small river that pooled in various spots. Rose stood uncertainly at the edge of the water, watching as Ginny took a running leap into one of the pooled area's, when she surfaced, she turned and gestured to Rose to do the same.

"Come on in, the water feels really nice right now and look!" She stood up completely and Rose was relieved to see that the water only came to just above her waist.

Rose decided that instead of jumping into the water, she would just walk in.

"Well that's no fun." Ginny teased her, Rose just grinned back,

"Sorry, but I'm still not comfortable in deeper water than what you get in a tub."

Ginny nodded and tugged Rose further into the water, "Then we should start teaching you how to swim." She said before dropping into the water again.

The girls spent the next hour giggling as Ginny tried to teach Rose to swim better than doing some weird version of a doggie paddle and stroke combined.

"Well, well, you two look like your having fun! Mind if we join?" Rose spun around in surprise to see the twins standing on the shore dressed in swim trunks, and further behind them she could see Ron and Harry headed their way as well. Rose smiled and looked to Ginny who was blushing a little as she stared at Harry but nodded.

"Sure! The more the merrier!" She said. The twins grinned mischievously before jumping in, splashing Ginny and Rose who were just laughing.

"We should play chicken!" Fred said when Ron and Harry finally made it over. Rose crinkled her nose.

"How do you play?" She asked warily. George grinned excitedly.

"Well, you have a person climb up onto another person's shoulders and they go up against another team like that and whoever manages to wrestle the other team into the water first wins." Rose didn't really like the sound of that, but everyone else was really excited about it. Ron was the first to notice her discomfort and said

"How about you watch for the first round Rose, then, if you wanna play, you and your team mate can play the winner." Rose nodded, smiling gratefully at him.

"Okay, who makes the teams?" She asked.

"How about Harry and Ron are a team, Fred and Rose can be a team and me and Ginny can be a team. That should make the teams mostly even." George said, scrutinizing the teams. Ron looked at him in surprise,

"You mean you and Fred aren't going to be a team?" He asked. George rolled his eyes.

"Not this time, I mean it wouldn't be fair to the girls, you and Harry will make a good team and your strong enough to go against us probably, me and Fred are practically unbeatable, but the girls are both still really small and they would be at a disadvantage and this way we all have a fighting chance and Rose won't be quite so frightened." He said, practically bragging. The girls both shot disgruntled looks at each other, not liking being called weak, but neither of them protested aloud. Thus began a huge war between everyone, Rose was surprised to find that she actually really liked the game and she was surprised but pleased to find that she and Fred made a good team.

From that point on, the week flew by quickly. In the mornings, Ginny and Rose would spend their time outside drawing, playing in the water, or chasing the garden gnomes around. Then after they ate lunch, the boys and Ginny would take the time to teach Rose how to fly. While she wasn't nearly as naturally talented as Harry, once she got over her slight fear of heights, she was able to confidently maneuver the broom well enough to play catch with an apple with the others. Ginny also took the time to teach Rose how to play gobstones, wizards chess, and exploding snap before the two helped Mrs. Weasley with dinner. After dinner, while everyone took their turns getting cleaned up, Rose would read through various books, including all of Harrys 1st year school books, some of the Weasleys household books, and even some history and political books that Percy recommended she read.

Rose was happy with her brothers and her stay with the Weasleys, she quickly grew very fond of them all. Ginny was a wonderful friend to talk with, even if she seemed to turn mute and became extremely clumsy more often than not when her brother was around, Ron didn't seem to mind that Rose was around a lot and would often invite her along with whatever he and her brother were doing, the twins were hilarious and would sometimes even let Ginny and her suggest pranks that they should play once they got to school while Percy was more than happy to explain to Rose what would be expected of her in each of the subjects and what she could expect as far as behaviors went with each of the teachers, he also was happy enough to describe a small portion of the jobs that she could have once she graduated. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were also wonderful, Mrs. Weasley always took the time to make sure the siblings had everything they needed and Mr. Weasley loved asking them about the muggle world.

At the end of the week Rose woke up to insistent tapping on Ginny's window, and because she was the closest, Rose groaned and rolled out of bed to let the strange barn owl into the room. The owl flew over to Ginny's desk and stuck it's leg out for her to take the letters. Rose blinked as she looked down to see two letters, one addressed to her and one to Ginny, both in bright green ink.

To Miss Roselyn G. Potter

Bedroom on the third landing

The Burrow

She squealed and jumped onto Ginny who groaned.

"umph! Get off Rose. What do you want?" She moaned.

"Our letters came! Our letters came! We're going to Hogwarts! I'm so excited" she let out a breath of air as Ginny knocked her off of her and the bed as she sat up in excitement.

"They came?! Oh, let me see! Let me see!" She said, practically ripping it out of Rose's hand when she held it out to her.

"To Miss Ginerva M. Weasley, Bedroom on the third landing, The Burrow!" She squealed looking over to Rose. "Let's go show mom and dad." She said. Rose nodded in excitement as they both quickly got dressed and ran down to the kitchen.

"Mom! Mom, Dad! Rose and I got our letters." She said when they finally saw them, sitting at the table eating some porridge. Mrs. Weasley smiled at them.

"Congratulations dears. The boy's letters all just arrived as well. Why don't you sit down to eat while we wait for the boys." She said. Rose quickly took a seat and started to load her plate, she had quickly grown to adore Mrs. Weasley's cooking. Soon enough, they heard the boys come down and the moment she saw Harry, Ginny accidentally knocked her porridge bowl to the floor with a loud clatter.

"Morning." Rose greeted Harry and Ron. While Ron just grunted a reply, not looking completely awake yet, Harry gave her a smile,

"Good Morning Rosie." He said back, ignoring the fact that Ginny had knocked her bowl to the ground, even as Mrs. Weasley waved her wand to clean the mess up before giving her daughter another serving.

"Letters from school," said Mr. Weasley, passing Harry and Ron identical envelopes of yellowish parchment, addressed in green ink. "Dumbledore already knows you're here— doesn't miss a trick, that man. You two've got them, too," he added, as Fred and George ambled in, still in their pajamas.

Rose smiled and looked back down at her letter, remembering her book list that she hadn't looked at yet.

For a few minutes there was silence as they all read their letters. When Rose got to her book list her eyebrows rose.

FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE:

Uniform

1\. Three sets of plain work robes (black)

2\. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear

3\. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)

4\. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)

Please not that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags.

Course Books

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk

A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot

Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling

A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore

Magical Droughts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scammander

Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart

Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart

Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart

Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart

Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart

Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart

Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart

Other Equipment

1 wand

1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 set glass or crystal phials

1 telescope

1 set brass scales

Students may bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS

Fred, who had finished his own list, peered over at Harry's.

"You've been told to get all Lockhart's books, too!" he said. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan — bet it's a witch."

At this point, Fred caught his mother's eye and quickly busied himself with the marmalade, making Rose giggle before asking,

"Is he very good? I saw that Mrs. Weasley had a few of his books for the house."

"Oh, he's wonderful! He has won several awards for his skills in Defense , I'm sure you will be learning plenty this year." Mrs. Weasley said, causing her husband and children to roll their eyes when she wasn't looking.

"That lot won't come cheap," said George, with a quick look at his parents. "Lockhart's books are really expensive…"

"Well, we'll manage," said Mrs. Weasley, but she looked worried. "I expect we'll be able to pick up a lot of Ginny's things secondhand." Rose looked up, worried

"Harry and I could help some, it's the least we can do for everything you've done for us." Mrs. Weasley smiled kindly at the two of them when she saw that Harry was nodding in agreement with his sister.

"Oh no dear, that's alright. You two don't have to pay us for anything." Rose frowned, but nodded before turning to Harry.

"Harry, can I have you're old books from last year? At least the ones that are the same?" Harry nodded before everyone's attention was diverted when Percy walked in. He was already dressed, his Hogwarts prefect badge pinned to his sweater vest.

"Morning, all," said Percy briskly. "Lovely day."

He sat down in the only remaining chair but leapt up again almost immediately, pulling from underneath him Errol, who was looking a lot like a molting grey feather duster.

"Errol!" said Ron, taking the limp owl from Percy and extracting a letter from under its wing. "Finally— he's got Hermione's answer. I wrote to her saying we were going to try and rescue you from the Dursleys."

He carried Errol to a perch just inside the back door and tried to stand him on it, but Errol flopped straight off again so Ron lay him on the draining board instead, muttering, "Pathetic." Then he ripped open Hermione's letter and read it out loud:

"Dear Ron, and Harry, if you're there,

"I hope everything went all right and that Harry and Roselyn are okay and that you didn't do anything illegal to get them out, Ron, because that would get them into trouble, too. I've been really worried and if Harry is all right, will you please let me know at once, but perhaps it would be better if you used a different owl because I think another delivery might finish your one off.

"I'm very busy with schoolwork, of course'— How can she be?" said Ron in horror. "We're on holiday! —'and we're going to London next Wednesday to buy my new books. Why don't we meet in Diagon Alley? Let me know what's happening as soon as you can.

Love from Hermione."

"Well, that fits in nicely, we can go and get all your things then, too," said Mrs. Weasley, starting to clear the table. "What're you all up to today?"

Rose and Ginny decided to grab some parchment and quill, or Art book and pencils in Rose's case, and go out to the garden to draw. Rose wanted to work on her landscape pictures and take a break from trying to draw people, while Ginny just drew whatever she felt like.

"So are you excited to get to go to Hogwarts?" Ginny asked after a few moments of silence. Rose looked up and smiled in excitement.

"Yeah, I'm really excited." Her smile faltered for a moment, "but I'm worried that I'm not going to get into Gryffindor." She admitted, "I'm not really that brave. And I'm worried that Harry will be upset with me if I don't get in." Ginny smiled at her reassuringly.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm sure you'll do well in whatever house you get in." Ginny paused and tilted her head as she studied Roselyn, "I'm pretty sure if you don't get into Gryffindor you'll be a Ravenclaw, simply because of the amount of books you've read here, and your always really curious about everything. You'd also be a really good Hufflepuff because you're really loyal and you care about everyone and everything. And if you're really worried about Harry, why don't you just ask him what he thinks?"

"Yeah, I think that's what I'll do. Thanks for that Ginny, you're a really good friend. I'm glad I wrote to you last year." Said Rose after she thought about it for a moment, nodding her head to Ginny in thanks.

"Me too!" Ginny said, smiling and nodding back before looking down at her paper, "Okay, now, show me how to do eyes again." She said, moving the topic effectively off of the houses.

Mrs. Weasley woke them all early the following Wednesday. After a quick half a dozen bacon sandwiches each, they pulled on their coats and Mrs. Weasley took a flowerpot off the kitchen mantelpiece and peered inside.

"We're running low, Arthur," she sighed. "We'll have to buy some more today… Ah well, guests first! After you, Harry dear!"

And she offered him the flowerpot.

Harry stared at them all watching him and Rose looked confused only for a minute before remembering what Ginny had told her about different modes of transportation that witches and wizards used.

"W-what am I supposed to do?" he stammered.

"He's never traveled by Floo powder," said Ron suddenly. "Sorry, Harry, I forgot."

"Never?" said Mr. Weasley. "But how did you get to Diagon Alley to buy your school things last year?"

"I went on the Underground —"

"Really?" said Mr. Weasley eagerly. "Were there escapators? How exactly —"

"Not now, Arthur," said Mrs. Weasley. "Floo powder's a lot quicker, dear, but goodness me, if you've never used it before —"

"He'll be all right, Mum," said Fred. "Harry, Rose, watch us first."

He took a pinch of glittering powder out of the flowerpot, stepped up to the fire, and threw the powder into the flames.

With a roar, the fire turned emerald green and rose higher than Fred, who stepped right into it, shouted, "Diagon Alley!" and vanished.

"You must speak clearly, dear," Mrs. Weasley told the Potters as George dipped his hand into the flowerpot. "And be sure to get out at the right grate…"

"The right what?" said Harry nervously as the fire roared and whipped George out of sight, too.

"Well, there are an awful lot of wizard fires to choose from, you know, but as long as you've spoken clearly-"

"He'll be fine, Molly, don't fuss," said Mr. Weasley, helping himself to Floo powder too.

"But, dear, if one of them got lost, how would we ever explain to their aunt and uncle?"

"They wouldn't mind," Harry reassured her. "Dudley would think it was a brilliant joke if we got lost up a chimney, don't worry about that —"

"Well… all right… Harry, you go after Arthur," said Mrs. Weasley. "Now, when you get into the fire, say where you're going."

"And keep your elbows tucked in," Ron advised.

"And your eyes shut," said Mrs. Weasley. "The soot —"

"Don't fidget," said Ron. "Or you might well fall out of the wrong fireplace —"

"But don't panic and get out too early; wait until you see Fred and George."

"Be careful Harry," Rose chirped from beside Ginny.

It was obvious that Harry was still confused as he took a pinch of Floo powder and walked to the edge of the fire. He took a deep breath, scattered the powder into the flames, and stepped forward, he opened his mouth and coughed out a quick, "D-Dia-gon Alley,".

As the flames engulfed him Mrs. Weasley stepped forward and looked hesitantly from the flame to the last of the group.

"Oh dear, Oh my. That wasn't very clear at all was it?" She asked. Mr. Weasley was the one who smiled reassuringly at them

"Don't worry dear, I'm sure he probably only went one grate too far. We'll find him." He then stepped forward and grabbed some floo powder

"I'll go check alright?" he didn't give any of them a chance to answer as he was off. Rose looked uncertainly at the fireplace before turning to Ginny.

"Can we go together Ginny? I don't think I want to do this alone the first time." Ginny and Mrs. Weasley nodded

"That's a good idea, go now, before me." The two girls clasped hands and stepped into the grate and Ginny took some powder and called

"Diagon Ally!" and the green flame engulfed them. It felt as though they were being sucked down a giant drain. They seemed to be spinning very fast — the roaring in her ears was deafening — she immediately closed her eyes to stop feeling dizzy—her bacon sandwiches were churning inside her — she wished it would stop, and then…

The girls fell out of the fire place, Rose falling over which resulted in Ginny falling on top of her.

"Bit unbalanced there mate?" Fred asked as he helped them to their feet. Rose immediately looked around.

"Where's Harry?" Fred frowned as he shrugged.

"Dunno, he never came through. Dad went to go look for him though, don't you worry." But Rose did worry. Mrs. Weasley came through she led them through the streets as they looked in store windows for Harry. After about ten minutes though they saw Hagrid, who just so happened to be standing with Harry, Hermione, the rest of the Weasley's and two other adults that looked like they might have been Hermione's parents.

Rose sprinted ahead of Mrs. Weasley and Ginny,

"Harry!" she shrieked, pulling him into a hug.

"Oh, Harry — oh, my dear — you could have been anywhere —" Gasping for breath Mrs. Weasley pulled a large clothes brush out of her bag and began sweeping off the soot Hagrid hadn't managed to beat away. Mr. Weasley took Harry's broken glasses that he was wearing, gave them a tap of his wand, and returned them, good as new. Rose turned to Hagrid and gave him a hug the best she could.

"Hagrid! How have you been?" She asked him. Hagrid chuckled and patted her head fondly.

"I've been good. I'm jus' grabb'n some slug eaten repellent to help protect the school cabbages." He said, showing her a can in his hand. She read it curiously before looking back up to him.

"Would it be okay to come visit you with my friend Ginny when school starts?" She asked, signaling for Ginny to come over. "This is Ginny Weasley, Ginny, this is my friend Hagrid." She introduced the two. Hagrid chuckled as he shook Ginny's arm.

"Pleased ta meet you Ginny. I'd love ta have you two visit me when ya have the chance. You can tell me all about your first week at school." He said before waving to the others who were all talking animatedly with Harry's friend Hermione and her parents.

When Mrs. Weasley saw that Hagrid had left she started to usher the group up the stairs to Gringotts, Ginny and Rose followed the group, not really listening to them.

"How do you know Hagrid?" Ginny asked curiously.

"He's the one that told Harry and I about being magical last summer. He delivered Harry's letter and took us to Diagon ally to get all of Harry's school things." Rose explained. Ginny nodded her understanding.

"Hurry up you two, Rose, Arthur is going to take you and your brother down to the Vaults with him while the rest of us stay up here. No need for us all to go down." Mrs. Weasley said, ushering Rose over to Mr. Weasley and her brother.

Rose groaned quietly as she got into the Cart that would take them down to their vaults and closed her eyes tightly once they started racing away. She frowned lightly when she saw how little the Weasley's had in their vault, and decided that she didn't care what they thought, she was going to figure out how to leave them some money for everything they did for her and her brother that summer. After visiting the Weasley's vault, they stopped by Harry's trust vault and then Rose's where she quickly scooped as much money as she could into her coin bag before reluctantly getting back into the cart.

When they finally came to a stop back at the foyer, Harry had to pry her fingers off the handlebars of the cart.

"You know Rosie, it's just like flying." He said as he helped her out. She glared weakly at him.

"Is not." She muttered back before staggering over to Ginny, who looked like she was trying not to laugh at her, and Mrs. Weasley, who was looking at her with concern.

"Well, now that your back, we'll go and get all your things. We're going to meet everyone at the bookstore at one o'clock so let's be off." She said, waving to the others who were all getting ready to head off their own ways. Rose also gave a brief wave to Harry, who was going to go with his friends, before she turned to Ginny.

"So what do you want to get first?" She asked Ginny. Ginny looked around thoughtfully,

"How about we get our robes since you also need to get some everyday clothes." Rose nodded and turned to Mrs. Weasley who smiled at the two.

"I'm going to drop you two off there before I run to do a few erands. I'll be back in about thirty minutes. Will that be all right with you two?" She asked.

"Of Course." The two coursed together before walking into Madam Malkins. While the two were getting fitted, another girl their age with long dark hair and dark grey eyes walked in, turning to wave at her parents who waved back before wandering away before turning back to Madam Malkin who asked her,

"Hogwarts as well dearie?" The girl nodded confidently before sitting down on a waiting chair when Madam Malkin continued to say. "It'll be just one moment while I finish up these two."

"Hello, I'm Astoria Greengrass, pleased to meet you." She said softly. Ginny and Roselyn smiled at her.

"Hello, I'm Ginny Weasley and this is Roselyn Potter." Ginny said.

"I prefer Rose, but never Rosie." Roselyn said quickly. The girl looked at her curiously for a moment before smiling.

"Are you both first years too?" She asked. They both nodded and smiled back at her.

"Yes. What house do you think you'll be in?" Ginny asked, "I'm hoping for Gryffindor." She said.

"And I'm hoping for Gryffindor or Ravenclaw." Rose pitched in. Astoria looked between the two indecisively for a moment before shrugging again.

"I'm not sure, most of my family are either Ravenclaw's or Slythrines. I don't really suppose I mind which house I go into though." She told them. Ginny wrinkled her nose at Slythrin, but didn't say anything. Rose nodded her understanding, but before she could say she didn't really care what house she went into, Madam Malkin patted Astoria.

"Alright sweetheart, your done. Shall I ring you up or are you waiting for your parents to come back?" She asked her.

"I'm waiting for my parents to come back, they should be here in a few moments." Madam Malkin noded at the reply and started to get Ginny fitted. While Rose waited, she turned to Astoria,

"So, I'm getting new clothes, would you have any suggestions for me?" She asked, trying to befriend the dark haired girl. Astoria blinked in surprise before giving her an appraising look.

"Well, since you're a red head, I would stay away from yellows and oranges unless they have other colors mixed with them. Light blue will bring out your eyes. So you'll want a shirt or two in that color. Are you looking only for robes or some muggle clothes as well? Cause There's this really great clothes store a little further down the ally." Rose nodded at the answer before asking,

"What about here?"

"This is really your best option for robes, Madam Malkins has a wonderful robe selection." Astoria said, gaining a pleased grin from the woman.

"Well, You next dearie." She told Rose as she let Ginny hop down.

That was exactly when Astoria's parents walked in.

"Well, I'll see you two on the train or at school I guess. It was nice meeting you." She said. Rose and Ginny also bid the girl good bye before finishing getting fitted, just in time for Mrs. Weasley to come back and pay for Ginny's things.

Next they ran into the clothes shop Astoria mentioned to buy Rose four outfits, underclothes, a jacket, gloves, hat, and shoes before going to get the girls wands.

"Ah, a pleasure to see you again Miss. Potter, and you must be Miss. Weasley, Here for your wands?" Mr. Olivander greeted them.

"Hello again Mr. Olivander." Rose replied, eyeing him warily, he had creaped her out the previous year when Harry had gotton his wand, but it seemed he wasn't always like that.

"We are here for wands." Ginny replyed to the question. smiled

"Well, lets start with Miss Weasley shall we? Which hand is your wand hand?" He asked, getting his measuring tape out.

"My Right." She replied as she watched the measuring tape curiously.

Rose watched in awe as Ginny found her wand on the second try, a burst of small fireworks shot out of the tip. "Wonderful!" Mrs. Weasley beamed.

Then Rose was up and on her fourth wand, she asked, "Why does it take some people longer to find their wands than others?"

Mr. Olivander smiled excitedly, "Good question! Sometimes it's because I've already found many of a person's family's wands, and similar personality traits and values are inherited and so I can guess based on what I know of the previous family members wands. Sometimes it is more difficult for people who differ vastly from their family or had something happen in their life that would change their values from what I have already experienced. Generally for muggleborns I start off with the more common cores and wand woods before narrowing them down."

Rose and Ginny both stared at him, impressed. "wow, that sounds like a lot of hard work." Rose stated before grinning manically when he handed her a wand that warmed her hand as a burst of glitter shot out of her wand.

"Excellent, Pear wood with a phoenix core, 12 ½ inches with unbending flexibility. That'll be 7 galleons a piece." He told them.

Before Mrs. Weasley could pay for Ginny's, Rose pulled out the required amount and paid for both wands.

"Oh, that's not necessary dear." Mrs. Weasley fretted. Rose just smiled at them.

"Don't worry, think of this as Ginny's birthday present because I couldn't get her one last year."

"Thanks Rose!" Ginny gushed, hugging her. Rose laughed and hugged back.

"No problem."

After that, they went into Eeylopes Owl Emporium where Rose bought a black owl that cad a crescent white spot on her wing, prompting Rose to call the owl Artemis.

After getting the rest of their supplies, they headed to Flourish and Blotts. However, they were by no means the only ones making their way to the bookshop. As they approached it, they saw to their surprise a large crowd jostling outside the doors, trying to get in. The reason for this was proclaimed by a large banner stretched across the upper windows:

GILDEROY LOCKHART will be signing copies of his autobiography

MAGICAL ME

Today 12:30 - 4:30 P.M.

"We can actually meet him!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed excitedly, pulling the girls into the long line that seemed to comprise of mostly other witches around Mrs. Weasley's age.

"Wow, I didn't know Lockhart was so popular!" Rose said lowly to Ginny.

"Yea, he's really popular with the women because he's so handsome and he's done a whole lot of amazing feats against dark creatures." She replied, scowling at several older ladies who were getting more than a little pushy.

Rose grunted and turned to Mrs. Weasley, "can we go look at some of the other books while we wait for the line to move?"

The older woman nodded distractedly as she tried to catch a glimpse of Lockhart.

Rose grabbed Ginny and went to look at some of the books she hadn't been able to look at while Ginny looked through a book of curses.

After the fifth time they got bumped into, Ginny got fed up and grabbed Rose and drug her back to her mom to see if they were almost done yet. When they found Mrs. Weasley again, she had been joined by the grangers, the twins, and Harry, Ron and, Hermione.

"It's to crowded in here, can we leave yet?" She complained, Rose grumbling irritably behind her.

"No kidding. I'm not seeing what all the fuss is about." Rose added. Hermione gave her a scandalized look.

"What do you mean? Mr. Lockheart is amazing! He wrote so many books about his experiences with dark creatures around the world! He's so smart!" She gushed.

"So? Are you sure you don't just like how he looks?" Rose grumbled as the man finally came into sight. Rose eyed him doubtfully, "he certainly looks to pretty to have done everything he says he has."

"You can't judge a person on their looks alone Rose!" Hermione huffed, makeing Rose look at her sourly.

"I dunno Hermione, I reckon she's right. The guy doesn't even have one scar. There's no way he did all that stuff." Ron said, backing her up.

Before Hermione could reply again though, the photographer ran into Ron

"Out of the way, there," he snarled at Ron, moving back to get a better shot. "This is for the Daily Prophet —"

"Big deal," said Ron, rubbing his foot where the photographer had stepped on it. Roselyn snorted in amusement, she really did feel bad for Ron.

Unfortunately, Lockheart heard him and looked for the person who wasn't amazed by him and spotted Ron, he opened his mouth to say something befor his eyes caught Harry standing just behind and to the side of his friend. Lockhearts eyes widened in surprise before he lept up and shot forward

"By Merlin,It's Harry Potter!" He shouted as his hand closed around her brothers wrist.

The crowd all started whispering excitedly at the thought of the boy who lived being here with the famous Gilderoy Lockheart.

Rose thankfully managed to doge Harry grabbing for her, and watched in irritation as Lockheart manhandeled her brother.

"Is it alright for him to do that?" She heard ask anxiously. Rose shot her an approving look

"It shouldn't be, but I don't know enough about wizarding child laws to be certain." Rose told her lowly, wrinkling her nose at the Mans declaration that he would be teaching at Hogwarts that year, causing Hermione to squeal in excitement

"Oooh! Just think of what we'll learn under him!"

Ginny snorted and traded incredulous looks with Rose.

Shortly after the announcement and Lockheart loading Harry down with a free set of signed books, he slinked back over to them, his face so red Rose was surprised it hadn't exploded.

"Here, I don't want these." Harry mumbled as he gave Ginny the signed books, causing her to also turn bright red.

Rose snickered and said, "I'm going to go buy my books, I'll be right back."

She walked over to the cashiers where the twins were putting all of their siblings books so their parents could buy them.

"Hello you two." She said before handing her books over to be checked out.

"Hello again Rose, I'm surprised you didn't buy more books." George teased.

Rose huffed, "I would have loved to get some more books, but it's so busy in here that I was having a hard time looking at the books without constantly getting run into.

The three traded grins when the cashier started grumbling irritably at that.

After Rose got her books back, she and the twins walked back over to their family's that were talking tensely with two platinum blond males.

"Malfoy." Fred hissed when he saw them. They came to stand next to the group just as Mr. Weasley had thrown himself at Mr. Malfoy, knocking him backward into a bookshelf. Rose gave a startled shriek as she was pushed backwards and she would have hit the ground had the twins not caught her.

Dozens of heavy spellbooks came thundering down on all their heads and the twins started to yell encouragements at their dad at the same time that Mrs. Weasley was yelling at hem to stop.

Soon it was mass mayhem with books falling off their shelves, the crowd trying to get out of the way, Lockheart and his photographer jumping around in excitement, the shop owner trying to restore order and the two grown men still brawling.

"Alright gents, break it up!" Came the booming voice of Hagrid who easily parted the crowed. He quickly grabbed the men and yanked them apart by their scruffs like naughty little boys. He set them down and Rose watched warily as Mr. Malfoy thrust Ginny's book back to her, his eyes glittering in malicious glee.

"Take it girl, clearly it's the best your parents could do." He sneered before grabbing his son and leaving. Rose ignored the adults as they discussed what just happened and finished buying the books and saddled up to Ginny who was looking slightly shaken.

"Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" Rose questioned her. Ginny shook her head.

"I'm fine, a bit startled that he would just grab something from me and also from the fight, I think I only had one book land on my head but I managed to avoid the majority of the fight." She replied. Rose nodded her understanding.

"Good." She glared over her shoulder, "What a creep! I cant believe he did that. What even started the fight?"

"He was insulting us. Eventually he said something that made dad really mad and attack him." Ginny said quietly as they were led to the leaky cauldron to floo back to the Burrow.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The day before they were to go to school, Ginny, Mrs. Weasley and Rose spent the day cooking up a delicious dinner with everyone's favorite dishes while the boys went out to play quidditch and even Percy came out of his room to help Mr. Weasley set up some tables in the yard. After the meal, the twins set off a spectacular show with some Filibuster Fireworks they had while everyone had one last cup of hot cocoa.

On their way up to bed, Rose pulled her brother aside, "Can we talk for a moment Harry?"

Harry stopped and looked at her curiously, "What's wrong Rosie?"

"Well, I was talking to Ginny earlier, about the different houses, and I was worried because I'm not sure if I'll make it into Gryffindor and I don't want you to be mad if I'm not." She finally breathed out nervously. Harry blinked at her in surprise before laughing lightly and ruffling her hair.

"Oh, well, don't worry about that okay? I won't be mad if you don't get in." Rose sniffed and hugged him.

"You'll love me even if I get into Slythrin? Or make a Slythrin friend?" Harry hesitated only for a moment before nodding decidedly.

"Of course I will. But, just so you know, I don't think you will be sorted there. I think your more of a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. And just be careful if you do befriend a Slythrin, after all, it's not a very nice house." Rose smiled and nodded

"Alright then. Thank you Harry. I love you." Harry nodded and gave her a hug before helping her up.

"Love you too Rosie. Now let's go to sleep." Rose nodded and followed Harry upstairs, parting ways when they got to the third landing.

When Rose slipped into Ginny's room she saw her writing in a diary on her bed.

"I didn't realize you had a diary Ginny." She said in surprise, making Ginny start and slam the book shut before looking up at Ros sheepishly.

"Oh, sorry Rose, you scared me." She laughed as she scratched her cheek, looking down at said book. "I didn't have a diary, but it was in the things mum and dad bought me for school so I thought I might as well try it out. It's actually kinda relaxing." She added as she put the diary to the side and spun to face her.

"Soooo? What did you talk to your brother about?"

Rose blushed, "Oh, I was just asking him about how he'd feel if I didn't get into Gryffindor. Or if I got into Slythrin." Ginny nodded her understanding.

"And I'm assuming it went well because your not in tears or a nervous bundle." She said. Rose laughed and nodded as she also crawled into the bed next to her friend.

"Yeah, he thinks I'll either be a Hufflepuff or a Ravenclaw." She said.

"I've no doubt. We'll still be friends if we're not in the same house though, right?" Ginny asked anxiously. Rose nodded furiously,

"Of course! Friends forever right?" She said, holding her pinky out. Ginny tilted her head and looked at it curiously

"What am I supposed to do?"

"You're supposed to link pinkies with me. It's the most serious promise out there because if you break it then I have to break your pinkie." Rose tried to say seriously, but her twitching lips gave her away. Ginny smiled and linked pinkies with each other.

"Good night Rose." She said as she laid down. Rose grinned, said goodnight and went to bed also.

The next morning, the two girls were up at four o'clock, far to excited to continue sleeping. They both took their turn in the shower before getting dressed into some nice clothes and helping style each others hair. Rose braided Ginny's hair into two French braids while Ginny put hers into a fancy bun and clipped her bangs back. Afterwards, the double checked their trunks and drug them downstairs where Mrs. Weasley was cooking up a large breakfast. She smiled knowingly at the two and gave them their plates full of food.

"After you finish, can you go wake the boys up?" She asked the girls who just nodded as they scarfed down their food.

Before they were done, Percy came ambling down the stairs with his trunk.

"Hello Percy." Rose said before giving Mrs. Weasley her plate and telling Ginny, "I'll go get my brother and Ron up, and you can get the twins, k?"

Ginny nodded her agreement as she shoved the last of her bacon in her mouth and stood up to get the twins.

When Rose opened the door to get the two boys, she was surprised to see Ron running around, throwing things into his trunk with Harry's help.

"Wow you two, wants you and your things downstairs, she's got breakfast ready."

The two nodded their understanding and grabbed their trunks to follow her out.

"Excited for Hogwarts Rose?" Ron asked. Rose nodded frantically while smiling widely.

"Yes! I can't wait to learn all about magic, and Harry told me all about the library and I'm totally going to read all those books by 7th year!" She declared, making the boys laugh at her.

"Defiantly a Ravenclaw." Ron said and Harry nodded. Rose tilted her head in thought before shrugging,

"that's fine with me."

While the boys all finished eating and getting their things together, Ginny and Rose helped Mr. Weasley get as much stuff as they could into the car before letting Harry and Ron take over since they had an easier time carrying the trunks.

"Alright, is everybody ready to go?" Mr. Weasley asked as they all piled into the car, trying to distract from his wife's comments about how deceiving the size of the inside of the car was from the outside. At all the affermatives, he grinned and pulled out. They barely made it to town when George gasped.

"I forgot something! We have to go back!" he said.

"Is it something I can owl you tomorrow dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked. George shook his head, eyes deceivingly wide.

"No, It's in a secret spot! Please Mum?" he pleaded, causing Ginny and Rose to glance at each other with identical suspicious looks.

"Alright dear, lets turn around." And the car spun around to run back to the Burrow. George hopped out of the car from over his twin and ran in the house, after about five minutes later, he came skidding out of the house, shoving something in his pocket.

"Okay, I'm good." He said as he climbed back in the car." Mr. Weasley nodded and once again pulled out, but this time, he barely made it off the property when Fred shouted

"My Broom! We have to go get my Broom!" causing his father to skid to a halt.

"Fred! Was that necessary?" asked in exasperation, but Fred wasn't listening as he had already thrown the car door open and sprinted out to grab his broom from the shed. Rose glanced anxiously at the time.

"Are we going to be late?" She asked nervously.

Mrs. Weasley, who was looking increasingly frazzled, glanced at her watch and smiled soothingly at her. "We still have some time left dear, don't worry."

Rose looked doubtfully at her but shrugged her shoulders as Fred climbed back into the car with his broom.

"Lets try this again, shall we?" Mr. Weasley asked, starting the car again. This time, they got all the way to the other side of town when Ginny gasped as she rummaged through her knapsack.

"My diary! I cant go without it! Mum, Dad!" She said frantically. Her parents shared worried and slightly irritable by now, but regardless, Mr. Weasley turned the car around to once more head back to the Burrow.

"Now you all better be thinking of anything else you need. This is the last time we're turning around." Mrs. Weasley warned. Rose started to twist her shirt up, she was getting nervous about how close they were cutting it. She really didn't want to miss the train.

By the time she had clambered back into the car, they were running very late, and tempers were running high.

Mr. Weasley unsuccessfully tried to convince his wife to let them fly the car to save time, but she stubbornly refused, and as a result they reached the Station at a quarter to eleven.

Mr. Weasley dashed across the road to get trolleys for their trunks and they all hurried into the station . Rose was slightly nervous to go through the wall of platform 9 ¾ . She was pretty sure that it could seriously hurt if she ran into it.

"Percy first," said Mrs. Weasley, looking nervously at the clock overhead, which showed they had only five minutes to disappear casually through the barrier.

Percy strode briskly forward and vanished. Mr. Weasley went next; Fred and George followed.

"I'll take Ginny and Roselyn and you two come right after us," Mrs. Weasley told Harry and Ron, grabbing Ginny's hand while Ginny grabbed Roselyn hand and setting off. In the blink of an eye they were gone.

Roselyn nearly stopped and gaped around the platform. Families were rushing around last minute as children were quickly finding places to sit.

"Hurry, Hurry!" Mrs. Weasley said as they loaded up their trunks. "Now, have a good year and stay out of trouble!" she said giving Ginny and Rose a quick hug.

"Bye! Thank you for this summer!" Rose called as the train started to pull out. Rose looked to Ginny and shrugged,

"Well, lets go find somewhere to sit alright?" Ginny smiled and nodded before looking thoughtful

"I wonder where Ron and Harry are?" Rose smiled knowingly at her before shrugging.

"They probably got on somewhere else. But let's not sit with them. I want to actually talk with you." She teased as Ginny's face went a brilliant scarlet color

"Oh be quiet." They took off down the train, looking into compartments that were full of children. Finally, about half way down the train, they found a compartment that only had one small, mousey-haired boy sitting in it looking out the window excitedly. The two girls looked at each other, shrugged, and opened the compartment

"Hello, mind if we sit here? Everywhere else is full." Ginny said. The boy looked over and smiled excitedly

"Yeah! Of course! I'm Collin Creevy, nice to meet you! Who are you? Are you first years too? I am." Rose looked at him strangely as she sat down next to him, Ginny sitting down across from them.

"Nice to meet you too. Yes, we're first years also and this is Ginny Weasley and I'm Roselyn Potter." The boys jaw dropped and looked at her in Awww. Rose gave Ginny a confused and slightly uncomfortable glance before looking back at Collin.

"Woooowww! Are you related to Harry Potter by chance?" Rose nodded slowly

"Yes, I'm his little sister." Collins eyes widened

"Oh wow! I know all about your brother! How he survived when You-know-who tried to kill him and only got a scar on his forehead! That's so amazing! And he was only a baby!" Rose nodded and was only able to get in

"Actually he was a toddler." Before Ginny jumped in

"Yeah, and he faced you-know-who last year and lived too! And got through all sorts of enchantments and everything!" Rose sat back, feeling a little more than uncomfortable. She loved her brother and thought he was really cool. But this hero worship was strange to her. After all, until last year there was nothing special about either of them. Colin turned to Rose suddenly and asked

"So how did you survive the attack?" Ginny looked over to her with a curious gaze as well. Rose shifted

"Oh, well, Voldemort tried to kill Harry first so he never got a chance to try and kill me." Rose explained what Harry had explained to her that summer when he had first gotten home. Ginny seemed to be able to sense that Roselyn did not like the conversation and changed it to what house Colin thought he would be in.

"Anything off the trolley dears?" they all looked up in surprise before looking at each other. Rose could see that neither had money so she hopped up

"Lets see, let's get a little of everything." The trolley lady smiled and gave her the sweets as she paid her. Rose came back into the compartment and tipped all the candy onto the seat next to Ginny.

"So, are you two going to help me eat all this?" they smiled and grabbed some candy.

"Oh, uhh, these aren't real frogs are they?" Colin asked as he eyed the chocolate frog. Ginny and Rose laughed, (even though Rose had the same question when she had her first one at Christmas the previous year)

"No, they're just magicked." Ginny explained as she sucked on a sugar quill. When Rose went to grab a box of bertie botts every flavored beans to try, something blue just out the window caught her attention. Her head whipped over as she stood up suddenly, startling the other two.

"What? What is it Rose?" Ginny asked. Rose pressed her head to the window.

"No way! I think Ron and Harry are flying the car!" she said. Ginny's eyes widened and looked out the window just in time for the car to dip down from the clouds for a few moments before flying back up. The three looked at each other in astonishment

"That was a flying car!" Colin stated in disbelief. Rose nodded staring at where the car had just disappeared in confusion.

"I wonder why they're not on the train?" she mused out loud, before turning back to her candy. 'I hope they're okay.' She thought briefly before going back to talking with the other two.

About halfway through the trip, the door to their compartment opened up and the familiar head of Astoria peeped in.

"Astoria! Come on in." Rose called, happy to see her. She smiled and stepped in to sit next to Colin.

"Hello Rose, Ginny." She said before turning to Colin. "Hello, my name is Astoria Greengrass." Colin grinned widely at her,

"I'm Collin Creevy. Aren't you excited to be at Hogwarts? Do you three already know each other? Oh! Can I take all of your pictures? I told my parents I would take tons of pictures to show them."

Astoria looked a little taken aback, looking at the other two girls who were just grinning at her.

"Don't worry, he did this with us too." She turned back to Collin, "You probably don't want to bombard everyone you meet with questions Collin, you should probably let them answer. The three of us met in Madam Malkins and I'm okay with the pictures if you two are." Ginny grinned and Astoria nodded and the three of them sat across from Collin, leaning back so he could fit them in the picture and all smiled.

"Say, Hogwarts!" He said, all three girls laughed and repeated it, blinking when the flash went off on his camera. "Thanks! My parents and my little brother will be so happy to see all these."

"Can I have a copy when you get them developed?" Rose asked.

"Ooh! I want one too!" Ginny added excitedly.

"Me as well?" Astoria pitched in. Collin agreed and the group spent the next little bit taking turns taking pictures of each other. Rose had even asked one of the prefects walking by if they could take one of the group together.

Soon the train started to slow down before stopping completely and everyone started to get off.

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" they heard. Rose turned around and smiled.

"Hagrid!" she called waving to the giant man. He smiled brightly at her

"All righ' there lit'le Rosie?" Rose nodded as Collin looked up at aww at him.

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Rose thought there must be thick trees there, so she had to quickly reach out to try and touch them, and sure enough, her hand pushed up against a huge tree.

Nobody spoke much as they walked on.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Oooooh!"

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Roselyn, Collin, Ginny, and Astoria all climbed into the same boat.

"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then - FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was a smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

When they got out, Hagrid walked to the door, raised a giant fist, and knocked.

The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Rose was immediately able to tell that this was Professor McGonagall, just from Harry's description of her.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here," She pulled the door wide. Rose stared in disbelief at how huge the entrance hall was!

The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make it out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Rose could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right, but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. The crowded in, standing rather closer together than they usually would have done, peering about nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room. The four Houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each House has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule breaking will lose House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours. The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarted yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

"I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly."

She left the chamber. Rose shifted nervously, undoing her braided hair and redoing it quickly.

"How exactly do they sort us into Houses?" she asked no one in particular, it had been the one thing Harry refused to tell her about. Astoria was the one to answer.

"You have to put on the sorting hat. My sister told me. You put it on and it see's your quality's, then it sorts you." Rose looked over at her with a relieved smile

"Oh good. I was afraid it would be a test." Ginny snorted

"Yah, well you'd pass seeing as how you've all but memorized all our books as well as our brother's books." Rose blushed, it was true, she had spent a good majority of the summer reading her's and Harrys books so she was all caught up, even though Ginny had laughed at her and told her not to worry about it.

"It sounds like you'll be a Ravenclaw then." Astoria noted, staring at her in disbelief, "I don't think anyone but a Ravenclaw would study that much when they don't have too." Collin was also looking a little ill.

"I only just glanced through my books. You don't think we'll have tests on our first day do you?" He asked. Ginny shook her head.

"No, not our first day. You'll be fine Collin, Rose just went overboard with the studying. We'll all start at the same level." She assured the boy.

"If you're all ready, it's time for the ceremony." Professor McGonagall announced as she strode back into the room, looking over them all. "Form a line and follow me."

Rose had trouble swallowing as she got into line between Astoria and Ginny before they walked out of the room, across the hall and through the double doors that led to the Great Hall.

Just as she had in Diagon ally, Roselyn wished she could see everything at once. There were four long tables that the students were sitting at, all had empty golden plates and goblets, and thousands of candles floating above them. The ceiling was dotted with stars and clouds, looking as though the Hall simply had no roof and she truly was looking up at the night sky. She glanced around at all the students who were staring at the group, making her slightly nervous, but she could spot the twins, Percy, and Hermione sitting at the same table. She frowned with worry when she noticed that Harry and Ron weren't there.

Sooner than she'd hoped, the group stopped in front of another long table that all the teachers were sitting at. She watched anxiously as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizards hat. The hat was obviously old and extremely dirt and Rose felt a little squeamish at the thought of having it touch her head, however she was relieved to see that Astoria hadn't been lying. The sorting hat suddenly opened its mouth and begin to sing, telling about the houses. Roselyn only paid partial attention as she looked around the great hall. She recognized Draco Malfoy at the Slythrin table close to a girl that could only be Astoria's older sister, though they could have passed for twins. She tried to see if she could recognize anyone from the last two houses but couldn't. She looked back up to McGonagall when she cleared her throat.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said.

"Collin Creevy" Rose had to try not to laugh as the boy all but ran up to the stool and rammed the hat on his head. It wasn't there for long when the hat yelled

"Gryffindor!"

"Anna Creed" A brunette girl with a haughty look on her face flounced up to the steps, taking a seat cautiously.

"Ravenclaw!" the girl smiled and ran off to the house.

"David Edgefield." The dark haired boy just in front of Astoria inched his way up to the hat, he sat there for almost five minutes before the hat called

"Hufflepuff!"

"Astoria Greengrass." The dark haired girl hesitated for a moment and Rose leaned forward and whispered 'good luck.' To her. The girl turned and gave her a shaky smile before walking up to the hat with a forced calm look. Again the hat took only a few moments before calling

"Slythrin!" Roselyn's heart sank. The girl seemed nice and she had hoped that they could be friends. Roselyn frowned before smiling, well; there was no reason why she couldn't still be the girls friend. Maybe she would be one of the good Slythrins.

"Luna Lovegood." Was called and a girl with Silvery blond hair and big blue eyes wandered up dreamily looking like she had appeared there by accident. The hat barely touched her head when it shouted

"Ravenclaw!" As more names were called and the group got smaller, Rose grew more nervous. Soon though she heard her name called

"Roselyn Potter" the Hall got quiet and Rose thought she had heard several comments about her being Harrys little sister or the sister of the boy who lived; much to her annoyance. she got up to the stool and sat down carefully on it and watched as the hall disappeared from her sight as the hat slipped over her eyes

'Well, what an interesting mind.' The hat thought to her, making her jump a little. 'Quite similar and yet so different from your brother. You've an intelligent mind, oh yes you crave knowledge. You're loyal and hardworking with a thirst to shine apart from your brother but not very courageous yet. Hmmm where to put you?' Rose closed her eyes and took a deep breath, not arguing or pleading for one house or another but trying to think of the benefits of all houses. 'hmmm, and mostly unbiased. Weighing options before deciding. I know where to put you.'

"Ravenclaw!" Rose opened her eyes and breathed a sigh as McGonagall lifted the hat off her head and gave her a small smile. She walked shakily over to the Ravenclaw house to sit next to Luna Lovegood who she smiled at briefly before looking back to watch as Ginny get sorted into Gryffindor. The girls smiled sadly at each other from across the Hall.

Albus Dumbledore stood up and smiled at them, his eyes twinkling merrily.

"Welcome back to another wonderful year. Before I bore you all to sleep with talks of rules I'll let you dig in! Enjoy!"

Rose eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when the plates were suddenly full of food.

"Wow!" she said in amazement.

"It is rather amazing isn't it?" Luna asked in a dreamy voice. Rose blinked and looked over to her

"Yes it is. I'm Roselyn, by the way, Roselyn Potter. You can call me Rose though, but never Rosie. Nice to meet you." Luna smiled

"I know, I'm Luna Lovegood." Rose smiled and started to stack her plate of food.

"I can't wait to start classes." One of the other first years, Derick O'Conner told the group of first years. "I'm looking forward to transfiguration. It'll be so cool to turn things into different things." He said.

"Hmph, well my mum told me we wouldn't start learning to transfigure until later in the year. I'm looking forward to Charms class myself," A mean looking blonde, Rose vaugly remembered her name was Callie Trent, responded snootily. "I can't wait until I learn some beauty charms."

The boys rolled their eyes and turned to Luna and Rose.

"What class are you looking forward to?" Michal Brown asked. Rose thought about it for a moment before saying,

"I don't know, they all sound interesting and useful. I think I want to see what I'm good at before I decide." She said, looking to Luna.

"I agree, though I do look forward to Herbology." She said.

"Ha! Who wants to dig in the dirt?" Anna Creed asked, "Your hands get all dirty and your nails break and not to mention the smell!" she crinkled her nose.

"I don't think I'd mind it so much, I think it would help you do potions if you knew about the plants you were using in them." Rose informed. The girls other than Luna all laughed before turning to talk to each other about various fashions, beauty products and the like. The boys scoffed at the group and turned to Rose and Luna again.

"What do you think of Lockheart teaching this year?" Caleb Tanners asked. Immediately there were groans and sour faces among the small group, but no one was able to answer because Professor Dumbledor stood up.

"Ahem - just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start of term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."

Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins.

"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House team should contact Madam Hooch.

Also, we have a new Defense Professor, everyone give a warm welcome to Professor Lockheart." To Rose's disgust, Lockheart was heavily cheered, by mostly the females in the hall. Just because of what he had done to Harry that summer had made her hate the man.

"Now, best be off to bed, off you go!"

"He is a rather strange fellow isn't he?" Luna asked, getting dirty looks from some of the other girls around them, but Rose smiled and nodded.

The Ravenclaw first years followed a prefect girl named Penelope Clearwater through the crowds and up the stair case's to a tower that was empty save for a large Eagle head knocker. Penelope turned to face the group.

"Now, this is the entrance to Ravenclaw tower. After you knock, the eagle head will give you a riddle to solve. If you can't get it then you'll have to wait for another student to come by. After each correct answer the riddle will change." With that, Penelope turned and knocked once. The groups surprise the Eagle head all but came to life and asked

"What is the beginning of eternity, the end of time and the beginning of every ending" Penelope thought for a moment before smiling.

"The letter E."

"Well said." The eagle said before the wall opened up, leading the group into the common room which had comfortable looking couches and chairs several bookshelves and a statue of Rowena Ravenclaw. Penelope led them over to the stair cases

"Girls are up the stairs and to your right, boys, the same on your left. If you have any problems or just need to talk you're more than welcome to come to me or any of the other prefects around the tower. Now you best be off to bed because you start classes tomorrow. Goodnight." Rose followed the other four girls up the stairs and into their door. Rose was grateful to see that her stuff was already at the foot of one of the beds, but she didn't bother getting undressed and just fell into her bed, asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.**

 **A/N: Thank you everyone for all the favorites, fallows, and reviews! It really motivated me!**

Chapter 6: Gilderoy Lockhart,"

The next morning Rose woke up at sunrise. She looked around the room she now shared with four other girls, girls that she would be living with for all but about three months a year for the next seven years. She smiled and hopped out of bed, trying to keep quiet so as to not wake the others, and started to get ready for the day. Since she was the first one up, she decided to take a quick shower before getting dressed, she also decided to pull her hair back into a French braid. Before she left the room she grabbed her book bag and glanced at the other girls to try and decide if she wanted to wake them. She started in surprise when she saw that Luna was already awake and dressed, sitting on her bed with her legs crossed and watching her with a slightly dreamy look. The two girls stared at each other for a few moments before Luna smiled and greeted her.

"Good morning."

Rose blinked and blurted, "Good morning to you as well." The two fell into silence again for a moment and Rose shifted nervously while Luna looked perfectly at ease.

"Do you want to go to breakfast with me?" Rose finally asked, figuring the other girl was waiting for her to ask. Luna beamed at her,

"I would love to." She hopped off the bed and grabbed her own book bag. Rose eyed the blondes fly away hair and decided to ask,

"Would you like be to do your hair before we go?"

Luna contemplated her question before nodding.

"Yes, I think I would like that."

Rose breathed a sigh of relief that she didn't take offence before leading her into the bathroom to brush her hair before putting it up into a braided crown, with some stray strands of hair escaping, giving her even more of a lost fairy look.

"Alright, there you go. Shall we go now?" Rose questioned as she put the last bobby pin in.

"Yes. Thank you, I haven't had anyone do my hair since my mother died." Luna informed her as she left the room again. Rose paused at the new information before decided not to react to it at all since it didn't seem to bother Luna at all.

"Ah, your welcome."

Rose paid close attention to everything they passed on their way to the Great Hall so that she could hopefully find her way to and from the Tower to the Great Hall at least without help from Luna, who somehow seemed to already know her way.

"How do you already know the way to the Great Hall?" She asked curiously.

"Oh, I was still quite awake when we were led up to the tower, I simply paid close attention." She said simply. Rose stared at her for a moment before slowly smiling, then laughing lightly.

"Well, that's good news for me then, I didn't pay any attention at all."

Luna laughed too, "I could tell, you fell asleep almost before you got to your bed."

Rose nodded, she had been exhausted the previous night.

The two made it to the Great Hall with plenty of time to spare. Rose was once again in awe of the sheer amount of food at the tables, despite the fact that Mrs. Weasley could certainly give the kitchens a run for their money.

She and Luna were almost finished eating when Rose noticed Harry and his friends come into the Hall, He and Ron were laughing together while Hermione was following along with disapproval written clear on her face.

"Uh-oh, looks like Hermione isn't very impressed with Harry and Ron's stunt last night." Rose said aloud, not really talking to anyone, but Luna answered her anyways.

"Perhaps she is jealous that she was left out?"

"I don't think so, everything my brother told me about her painted her as a huge rule follower. I think it's more likely that she doesn't like that they broke a lot of rules and laws." Rose corrected, then added "If you don't mind, after I finish my toast and eggs, I'm going to go over and talk to Harry. I didn't see him at the sorting ceremony last night. I want to tell him what house I got into, just in case no one told him because of the car thing."

Luna nodded her understanding before turning her attention to the ceiling where hundreds of birds started flying into the Hall, delivering mail to everyone. Luna got a magazine and a letter that she immediately opened.

Rose was about to ask who it was from when a piercing screech echoed around the Great Hall. She clamped her hands over her ears, but she could still hear Mrs. Weasley's voice

"— _STEALING THE CAR, I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY'D EXPELLED YOU, YOU WAIT TILL I GET HOLD OF YOU, I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I WENT THROUGH WHEN WE SAW IT WAS GONE —"_

Rose watched as all the plates and spoons rattled violently and she looked around to see everyone staring in either pity or amusement at Ron and Harry who were both looking extremely embarrassed. Rose watched with slight pity as Harry slowly sunk down in his chair, trying to look as though he couldn't hear the letter, but he wasn't being convincing since his face was bright red and he kept glancing at Ron or the letter.

Suddenly it was silent, though Roes's ears still rung, and the letter went up in flames. Several people laughed, breaking the tense silence, and chatter started to break out again.

Rose suddenly decided she didn't want to draw more attention to her brother or to herself and decided to stay seated.

"What was that?" She asked Luna, horrified that someone would send that to their child who would then be picked on for it. She could already see people laughing and snickering at their expense.

"It's called a howler, I think that it's main creation was to get the senders anger across so the receiver couldn't ignore the letter, but I think it's used more for embarrassment now than punishment." She explained as she opened her magazine upside down and started to read it.

"Uhhh, Luna? You know that you're reading that upside down right?" Luna looked up, her eyes wide in surprise,

"Of course. Its easier to understand!" Roselyn blinked and nodded uncertainly.

"Oh, sorry. Uh, what is that?" She asked. Luna smiled and closed the magazine just enough to show her the cover. Roselyn tilted her head a bit so she could read "The Quibler, huh, what's that about?" She asked Luna, but before Luna could tell her, the other three girls that shared their room sat down across from them. Callie Trent took one look at the magazine Luna was holding and scoffed.

"Don't pay any attention to that rag. It's full of crap, everyone knows that." She said snidely. Luna looked over at her sharply, her dreamy look having disappeared.

"It is not! It tells the truth, and my Dad is the editor." She said coldly. The three girls laughed meanly, but were unable to say anything because Professor Flitwick, the head of house came over with their time tables.

"Here's your schedule girls, while you'll have a small bit of leniency this week because your first years, do try to make it to your classes on time." He said in his high squeaky voice before moving on. Roselyn looked down at it.

"Let's see, today we have Defence against the Dark Arts, Herbology, and Potions ." Roselyn read off, she looked up and over to Luna, eager to escape the conflict. "Would you like to walk to class with me?" Luna glanced over to her, her dreamy look not quite back yet.

"Oh, yes. It is time to go isn't it?" The girls made their way out of the hall, the two quickly lost their way, so Rose asked Percy, who had just been passing by. Thankfully, he gave some really clear directions before going to his own class.

As they walked up the last flight of stairs, Rose wondered just how many stairs the school had.

"I don't know. Maybe the answer is in Hogwarts: A History." Luna suggested, Rose started, and she hadn't realized she had spoken out loud.

"No, it does say how many staircases, but not how many individual steps. I thought maybe on a free day we could try and count them all." Luna thought about it before agreeing

"Alright, but we'd also have to count the amount of trick steps."

"Of course we should." Roselyn immediately agreed, glad that she had someone to explore with.

When they got into DADA, they both took a seat in the center of class. To Rose's horror, Gilderoy Lockheart was already there beaming at them.

"Me," he said, pointing to the cover of his book and winking. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-team winner of With Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of that Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!" He waited for them to laugh; a few people smiled weakly. As Rose looked around she noticed that all of the girls but Luna and her were hanging onto his every word, even a fair few of the boys were looking at him in aww.

"I see you've all bought a complete set of my books – well done. I thought we'd start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about – just to check how well you've read them"

When he handed out the test papers he returned to the front of the class and said, "You have thirty minutes – start – now!"

Rose looked down at her paper and read:

1\. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour?

2\. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?

3\. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?

On and on it went, over three sheets of paper, right down to:

54\. When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?"

Roselyn sighed, she was glad that she had read the books if only so that she could answer the questions. She still didn't know what it had to do with Defense though.

Half an hour later, Lockhart collected the papers and rifled through them in front of the class.

"Tut, tut – hardly any of you remembered that my favorite color is lilac. I say so in Year with the Yeti. And a few of you need to read Wandering with Werewolves more carefully – I clearly state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic peoples – though I wouldn't say no to a large bottle of Ogdeds Old Firewhiskey!" He looked through them when his eyebrow rose

"Hmmm? Well, well, well. It looks like someone did read my books thoroughly. Roselyn Potter seems to have gotten all the answers correct! Well done Miss. Potter, 10 points to Ravenclaw." When her fellow classmates turned to look at her in surprise she scowled heavily at them. Before raising her hand. Lockheart smiled

"Yes Miss Potter?"

"I'm sorry Professor, but I'm not entirely sure what all this has to do with this class." Lockheart smiled pleasantly.

"Well Miss. Potter, it will be easier for you all to learn if you know about your teacher beforehand don't you think? After all, we'll be covering quite a bit of stuff this year." Roselyn nodded as though she understood what he was saying, even though she was quite sure that they didn't need to know their teacher to understand what was being taught.

"Well, that took a bit longer than anticipated, so for your homework I want you all to read the first chapter of Glading with Ghouls and be ready to discuss next time. Dissmised." As they all packed their bags to leave Lockheart called Roselyn to stay behind. Roselyn hesitated for a moment before turning to Luna

"Will you wait for me?" she asked. Luna nodded.

"I'll just be outside the door okay?" Roselyn nodded and made her way over to Lockheart.

"Ah, Roselyn, Roselyn, Roselyn, Roselyn." Roselyn just raised her eyebrow, wondering what this was about.

"Am I in trouble sir?" Lockheart laughed heartily as if she had just told an extremely funny joke

"Oh no, my dear, but I just wanted to offer my help." Roselyn was taken aback, it was the first day of school and she hadn't had a chance to really see what she was and wasn't good at.

"For what?" she asked.

"Well my dear, well, it has to be hard to live in your brothers shadow, so I thought that I would offer my help in getting you more recognized. Of course, you won't be nearly as famous as me. And you have a bit to do in order to catch up to your brother. So don't hesitate to ask for my help." Roselyn scowled in irritation. She loved her brother dearly, but if everyone was going to compare them, it would get very old, very fast.

"Thank you sir, but no thanks. I don't really want to be known." She said. Lockheart smiled patronizingly at her.

"Ah, you think that now. But if you ever change your mind, I'm here to help." Roselyn tried to keep her expression neutral

"Thank you sir. Good day." She utterd before she stomped out of the room

"That… That….. He's got to be completely mad." She said angrily as she stomped past Luna

"Yes, he does have a rather bad infestation of Nargles, doesn't he?" Roselyn blinked and turned to looked to Luna, she had forgotten the other girl was waiting for her and had stormed straight past. Once Luna caught up to her, they continued on down the stairs.

"Uhh, what are Nargles?" she asked.

"Oh, their invisible creatures that fly around your head and makes it all fuzy." Roselyn thought about it then nodded decisively,

"Then yes. He must have the most ever to have… not, been, seen…." Roselyn frowned as she thought about that sentence before shrugging and asking, "What do we have next?"

"Herbology in greenhouse one with the Gryffindors." Luna looked at her schedule she said. Roselyn gasped and grabbed Luna, dragging her along,

"Excellent. I want you to meet my friends Ginny Weasly and Colin Creevy." Luna smiled as she let herself be drug along.

"I know Ginny Weasley, she doesn't live to far from me." She commented. Roselyn slowed down as they came to a large group of people and she saw Harry, Ron, Hermione, Colin, and Malfoy and his goons all standing in the center of the commotion.

"lets go see what's happening." She muttered, pushing her way over to them. They got close enough to hear some of what was being said

"Jealous?" said Malfoy. "Of what? I don't want a foul scar right across my head, thanks. I don't think getting your head cut open makes you that special, myself." Crabbe and Goyle were sniggering stupidly.

"Eats slugs, Malfoy." Said Ron angrily. Crabbe stopped laughing and stating rubbing his knuckles in a menacing way.

"Be careful, Weasley," sneered Malfoy. "You don't want to start any trouble or your Mummy'll have to come and take you away from school." He put on shrill, piercing voice. "'If you put another toe out of line'-" A knot of Slytherin fifth-years nearby laughed loudly at this.

"Weasley would like a signed photo, Potter," smirked Malfoy loudly. "It'd be worth more than his family's whole house-"

"Why that-" Roselyn scowled and started to move forward when Ron whipped out his Spellotaped wand, but Hermione shut Voyages with Vampires with a snap and whispered, "Look out!"

"What's all this, what's all this?" Gilderoy Lockhart was striding toward them, his turquoise robes swirling around him. "Who's giving out signed photos?"

Harry started to speak but he was cut short as Lockhart flung an arm around his shoulders and thundered jovially, "Shouldn't have asked! We meet again, Harry!"

Lockheart pinned Harry to his side as Malfoy and his goons slid away. Roselyn felt sorry for her brother, but didn't want to get caught by Lockheart again. So she and Luna hung back, because she wanted to talk to Colin when he was done.

"Come on then, Mr. Creevey," said Lockhart, beaming at Colin. "A double portrait, can't do better than that, and we'll both sign it for you."

Colin fumbled for his camera and took the picture as the bell rang behind them, signaling the start of afternoon classes.

"Off you go, move along there," Lockhart called to the crowd, and he set off back to the castle with Harry, who looked like he wanted to sink into the ground. As they disappeared into the castle, Roselyn made her way over to Colin

"Colin!" Colin looked up from his camera and smiled excitedly when he saw her.

"Rose! Rose look! I got a picture with Harry AND Gilderoy Lockheart! Isn't that so cool?" Rose frowned and sighed

"Colin, Harry doesn't want all that. He just wants to be treated like everyone else." Colin frowned as he looked down to his camera.

"Oh, well. I just wanted a picture to prove to my parents that I really did meet him." Rose shook her head.

"it probably would have been better if you asked him in privet, I would have introduced you to him. oh well, this is Luna Lovegood. She's my friend from Ravenclaw." Luna looked at her in surprise, as though she was surprised that Roselyn had called her a friend. Colin smiled and shook her hand enthusiastically

"Hi! I'm Colin Creevey, I'm a muggleborn and it's really exciting to get to come here don't you think? Can I walk to class with you? I think we all have Herbology together next." He fired off again, clearly his excitement getting the better of him again.

Luna smiled and nodded, "We do. It's nice to meet you Colin."

When they got to Herbology, Rose spotted Ginny and hurried over to her.

"Ginny, can we sit with you?" She asked gesturing to the three seats around her table. Ginny beamed and gestured to the seats

"Of course! What class did you just have? We had Charms, it was amazing! I love Professor Flitwick, he's really cool." She said, leaning forward eagerly to talk with her. Rose scowled,

"We had Defense against the Dark Arts. I don't like Lockheart, he's a total show off." She complained.

"I think he's amazing! Can you believe he did all those things? I can't wait till his class, I bet we'll learn tons!" Colin exclaimed. Rose made a face at him.

"Don't tell me you believe all that? There's no way he did it all." She told him, looking to the other two girls to support her. Luna wasn't paying attention, watching one of the plants in the corner of the greenhouse closely, but Ginny just shrugged.

"I dunno Rose, I mean, if it wasn't all true then wouldn't someone have said something? And Dumbledore had to have hired him for some reason." She said. Rose scrunched her nose up and crossed her arms irritably.

"I'll believe it when I see it."

"You're just sore over being drug in front of all those people this summer, give him a chance." Ginny laughed. Rose didn't get to reply because Professor Sprout bustled into the room, grabbing everyone's attention.

"Alright class, I'm Professor Sprout and I'll be teaching you all about magical plants, how to take care of them, and what they can be used for. I expect you all to bring your dragon hide gloves to every class unless I tell you otherwise and I expect you all to listen to me, as you get older, we'll be dealing with more and more dangerous plants and if you do something wrong then you will end up in the hospital wing." She said, putting some pots and soil up on the table she stood behind.

"I'm going to briefly go over what we'll be doing in class and the rules I expect you all to follow, then we'll get to learning about the different magical properties of different soils you'll all be using this year." She proceeded with the class and Rose found it all very interesting and useful.

After class was over, Rose and Luna said goodbye to Ginny and Colin who were headed off to Transfiguration, while the Ravenclaws headed down to the dungeons for Potions class.

When the girls got to the classroom in the dungeons, Rose saw that Astoria was already there and sitting alone at her table. Rose turned to Luna, "My friend Astoria is sitting right over there, do you mind if I go sit with her?" she asked.

"Go ahead, I'll sit here in the middle of the room, there's less chance of nargles getting to me or my stuff." She replied. Rose nodded quizzically, still not understanding what the creatures were , or did, but didn't argue and went to go sit with Astoria.

"Hey, how are you doing?" She asked the dark haired girl who startled and turned to her in surprise.

"Good… how are you?" She asked hesitantly. Rose sat next to her,

"I'm good, we just got done with Herbology, I really like that class, and before that, we had Lockhart, who has no clue what he's doing. What about you? What classes have you had so far?"

Astoria stared at her in slight confusion. "Why are you talking to me?" She finally asked. Rose leaned back a bit, hurt by the question.

"Why not? I thought we were friends." She said.

"We were/are, I mean, don't you hate that I'm a Slytherin?" Astoria stuttered out. Rose breathed a sigh of relief that Astoria wasn't' mad at her or anything.

"I don't care, it just means your cunning and ambitious, doesn't it? I still like you." Astoria let out a huge sigh of relief.

"Oh, I'm glad. Hey, I think Professor Snape is here." She said, nodding towards the door that swung open, Professor Snape swooping in, his black robes swirling around him.

He turned and sneered at the class,

"You are here to lean the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word – Roselyn could immediately tell that this was a person who didn't put up with non-sense and was subtly passionate about his topic, despite the rumor that he wanted the DADA position.

"As there is little foolish wand-waving, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. . . . I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as bit a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach." He looked around, his eyes landing on Rose, who was writing everything he said down in her notes, just as she had done with every Professor.

"Miss. Potter, could you so kindly inform me as to what it is that has you more interested than what I'm saying." Rose looked up in surprise.

"Nothing Professor, I'm just taking notes on what you're saying." Professor Snape raised an eyebrow and walked over to where she was to see that she had indeed been writing it down. And not only that, but she also had the notes from the black board down already. Professor Snape pressed his lips together as his eyebrow rose, studying her for a moment before he looked to the rest of the class

"It seems that Miss. Potter is indeed copying down all the notes today, something that you should all be doing, 5 points to Ravenclaw." Everyone stared in surprise at him; it was no secret that he favored Slythrin. Professor Snape scowled when nobody moved,

"Well? What are you waiting for?" and everyone scrambled to write down what he said and the instructions from the blackboard. Later, after their first attempt at making the cure for boils, Roselyn and Astoria both got 5 points for having a perfect potion.

When they left class Roselyn was absolutely thrilled, though she often earned points.

"How great was that? It seems that I was worried about him hating me for no reason!" she said, Astoria nodded, puzzled

"That was strange; Professor Snape never rewards other houses students from what I hear." Astoria said as Luna came up and stated in her dreamy state.

"Maybe Roselyn reminds him of someone he liked." The other two girls looked at her, before looking at each other and shrugging

"That's possible." Astoria admitted reluctantly, looking at Luna with slight distaste.

"So Astoria, later on, Luna and I were going to explore the castle, I wanted to invite you and Ginny to come with us." Rose invited. Astoria grinned at her,

"That sounds exciting, I don't mind if Ginny doesn't. When were you guys planning on doing this?" She asked. Rose and Luna looked at each other for a moment.

"This weekend? When we don't have class? We could do our homework before or after." Luna suggested. Rose turned questionably to Astoria,

"Sounds like a plan to me." She said, "What about you?"

"Sounds fine to me as well." Astoria replied. "I have to go guys, I'm meeting up with my sister before we go eat."

The three girls said their goodbyes and went their different way's.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter**

 **A/N: Thank you everyone who has Favorited and followed this story! Also, thank you to my extremely kind reviewers, I had to show off your reviews to several people i was so excited to get them. Sorry this chapter took so long, but it's been a rough week and writing was the last thing on my mind. Hope you all enjoy!**

Chapter 7: Mudbloods and Murmurs

Rose had a hard time trying to catch her brother to talk with him over the next few days. If he wasn't trying to hide from Lockheart, (Not that she blamed him for that, even she hid when she saw him coming), then he was hiding from Colin who didn't seem to hear her when she told him to just leave him alone. To Rose's delight, Hedwig and Artimis would often come to see her at breakfast, grab some of her toast, before flying off to who knows where.

She had also become quite good friends with both Astoria and Luna, though Astoria really only tolerated Luna because Rose liked her. Ginny also got along with both the girls, she seemed to find Luna amusing to listen to, but quickly defended her from the mean words of anyone else, and while she was wary of Astoria because the girl was a Slytherin, it helped that they had met in Diagon ally.

Rose was also pleased that she loved all her classes (besides DADA), as Ginny had told her, she was very far ahead in all the classes, but that didn't make them any less interesting. In fact she loved hearing about the spells from the teachers, who spent years answering different questions by students and were easily able to answer all her questions, even encouraged it.

When the weekend finally came, Rose found herself standing at the Gryffindor table next to Ron and Hermione, wondering why Harry wasn't with them.

"Where's Harry?" she asked. They looked at each other before looking back at her

"He had a quidditch practice early this morning. We were going to go down and see if he will be done soon." Hermione said. Rose sighed, disheartened, she was hoping that now they were at the same school again, she and her brother would go back to being close like they had been in primary school, but they hadn't even been able to talk since school had started. She was starting to feel slightly distressed. Hermione must of noticed because she asked, "Do you want to come to the field with us?"

Rose nodded vigerously, "Yes please!" she stated, grabbing herself another pastry before turning to follow the two out.

"How are you liking classes so far Rose?" Roselyn's eyes lit up

"Their wonderful! Magic is by far the best thing ever!" she said, nodding in order to drive her point home.

"Had a class with Snape yet?" Ron asked. Roselyn nodded with a slight smile.

"Yep, I rather like potions and Snape's really not that bad. He even rewarded me with some house points." The other two stopped and looked at her in disbelief.

"Seriously?" Roselyn nodded

"Ten points. But he doesn't seem that bad." The two stared at her before looking at each other, shaking their heads and continuing on. To the groups surprise, no one was on the field.

"Didn't you say they were practicing early today?" Rose asked uncertainly. Ron shrugged as he looked around,

"That's what his note said." He replied.

"Then where is everyone? Did they go back up to the castle?" She questioned, looking behind them to see if they had passed each other. Rose spotted Colin, who was sitting up in the stands looking have asleep.

"Hey, there's my friend Colin." She told the other two, pointing, "I'm going to go talk to him."

Ron nodded, shoveing another piece of toast in his mouth. "Okay, we'll wait at the locker rooms." He mumbled through his toast. Rose and Hermione scrunched their noses up in disgust.

"That's so gross Ron!" Hermione scolded. Rose shook her head and headed up to Colin.

"What are you doing here Colin?" She asked, he jumped and looked wildly around, saw her and looked sheepish.

"Oh! Hey Rose, I must have fallen asleep." He said. His eyes widened and he looked around the pitch wildly, "Oh no! I didn't miss the practice did I?"

Rose shrugged, "I don't know, they're not out yet." She said, sitting down next to him. "When did you come out here?" She asked curiously.

Colin blushed, "Uh, I came down here with Harry at around five this morning."

Rose stared at him in disbelief before shaking her head.

"I don't believe you Colin, if you're not careful, you'll become a stalker." She said. Her attention was diverted when the Gryffindor team came out, all looking half dead. Rose watched in awe while Colin started clicking away furiously as the team started to wake up now that they were in the air. While Harry had tried to describe the game and the feeling of flying to Rose over the summer, she hadn't really gotten it. Watching them all fly around, practicing moves was amaizing and made her excited for her first flying class that hadn't happened yet.

She noticed that the team was starting to look around quizzically before narrowing down to her and Colin, who had noticed the attention and yelled out, "Look this way, Harry! This way!"

Rose sighed and tried to ignore him, watching as the team conversed in the air for a while before she saw one of the twins pointing to something at the far end of the pitch. She and Colin watched as a group in Slythrin green robes walked onto the field to meet the Gryffindor red clad team.

"Uh oh, what's going on?" She asked Colin who just shrugged, grabbing his camera bag and rushing down to the field.

"I don't know, but I'm not going to miss it!" he said. Rose's eyes widened as she hopped up off her seat.

"Hey, wait for me!" She called, rushing after him. When they got to the ground, Rose watched as the two teams got heated very quickly. She could see Malfoy in the middle of the group, showing off what looked like a very nice broom, if the Gryffindor team's faces were any indication. She came into hearing range just in time to hear him announce,

"I'm the new Slytherin Seeker, Weasley. Everyone's just been admiring the brooms my father's bought our team."

Roselyn just frowned, she didn't think they should let people buy their way on to the team, after all, what if someone was better than him?

"Good, aren't they?" said Malfoy smoothly. "But perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and get new brooms, too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives; I expect a museum would bid for them."

The Slytherin team howled with laughter while protests came from the Gryffindors, the girls were holding the twins in place, trying to keep them from lunging at the snotty blonde.

"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," said Hermione sharply. "They got in on pure talent."

The smug look on Malfoy's face flickered and Rose could just tell he was about to insult her.

"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood," he spat. There was immediate outrage at his words, the twins pulled away from the girls, diving for him while his own team tried to protect him. The girls were shrieking their own outrage and Ron turned deep red with rage, jabbing his wand at Malfoys face and attempted to cast a spell.

Rose yelped as a loud bang went off, echoing around the stadium, and a jet of light shot from the wrong end of his wand and hit him in the stomach, throwing him backwards, just barely missing Rose who had been pulled aside by Harry at the last minute.

"Ron! Ron! Are you all right?" squealed Hermione, hands over her mouth as she danced in place. Rose watched in fascinated disgust as Ron opened his mouth and belched out several slugs. She wondered how that was possible for a moment before realizing he probably needed some help. She was the first one to help him sit up, the others obviously concerned, but also grossed out. Collin was merely taking pictures like mad.

"Lets get him to Hagrids." Harry suggested to Hermione who hesitantly helped pull Ron up by the arms. Rose tried in vain to think of a counter curse, but all the noise wasn't helping her think, she felt to pressured.

"What happened, Harry? What happened? Is he ill? But you can cure him, can't you?" Colin was now dancing alongside them as they left the field. Ron gave a huge heave and more slugs dribbled down his front.

"Oooh," said Colin, fascinated and raising his camera. "Can you hold him still, Harry?"

"Get out of the way, Colin!" said Harry angrily. He and Hermione supported Ron out of the stadium and across the grounds toward the edge of the forest, Roselyn trailing behind them.

"Nearly there, Ron," said Hermione as the gamekeeper's cabin came into view. "You'll be all right in a minute — almost there —"

They were within twenty feet of Hagrid's house when the front door opened, but it wasn't Hagrid who emerged. Gilderoy Lockhart, wearing robes of palest mauve today, came striding out.

"Quick, behind here," Harry hissed, dragging Ron behind a nearby bush. Hermione followed, somewhat reluctantly. Roselyn had dove behind the bush faster than all three since she neither wanted to see the man, nor did she have to drag someone with her.

Rose grit her teeth, trying not to listen to Lockheart loudly tell Hagrid he should get one of his books and if he needed help he knew where to find him before stalking off. The four waited until the lunatic was out of sight before quickly dragging Ron up to Hagrids front door. Rose pounded on the door quickly.

Hagrid appeared almost immediately, looking thunderous before he noticed it was only them.

"Bin wonderin' when you'd come ter see me — come in, come in — thought you mighta bin Professor Lockhart back again."

Rose glanced around the room curiously while the other two manuvored Ron into a chair.

"Wha' happened ta him?" Hagrid asked as he handed the trembling red head a huge bucket.

"His wand backfired when he tried to do a curse." Harry explained shortly.

"Better out than in," he said cheerfully, plunking a large copper basin in front of him. "Get 'em all up, Ron."

"I don't think there's anything to do except wait for it to stop," said Hermione anxiously, watching Ron bend over the basin. "That's a difficult curse to work at the best of times, but with a broken wand —"

"Hey, at least we know that Ron can in fact work the curse. When you get a new wand you can try again." Roselyn said cheerfully, ignoring Hermione's disapproving glare and sending a wink to her brother who looked like he was trying not to laugh. Ron gave her a grateful smile before disappearing into the basin again.

Hagrid was bustling around making them tea. His boarhound, Fang, was slobbering over Harry.

"What did Lockhart want with you, Hagrid?" Harry asked, scratching Fang's ears.

"Givin' me advice on gettin' kelpies out of a well," growled Hagrid, moving a half-plucked rooster off his scrubbed table and setting down the teapot. "Like I don' know. An' bangin' on about some banshee he banished. If one word of it was true, I'll eat my kettle."

Roselyn looked at him in surprise, he had always been such a cheery fellow, other than when he yelled at the Dursely's and gave Dudley a pigs tail, she didn't think he could get upset with anyone. Hermione, however, said in a voice somewhat higher than usual, "I think you're being a bit unfair. Professor Dumbledore obviously thought he was the best man for the job —"

"He was the on'y man for the job," said Hagrid, offering them a plate of treacle fudge, while Ron coughed squelchily into his basin. "An' I mean the on'y one. Gettin' very difficult ter find anyone fer the Dark Arts job. People aren't too keen ter take it on, see. They're startin' ter think it's jinxed. No one's lasted long fer a while now. So tell me," said Hagrid, jerking his head at Ron. "Who was he tryin' ter curse?"

"Malfoy called Hermione something — it must've been really bad, because everyone went wild." Harry tried to explain, taking a piece of fudge and biting into it. Roselyn watched in slight fascination as his jaw seemed to glue itself shut when he tried to chew it.

"It was bad," said Ron hoarsely, emerging over the tabletop looking pale and sweaty. "Malfoy called her 'Mudblood,' Hagrid —"

Ron dived out of sight again as a fresh wave of slugs made their appearance. Hagrid looked outraged.

"He didn'!" he growled at Hermione.

"He did," she said, her face slightly bewildered and also slightly insulted. "But I don't know what it means. I could tell it was really rude, of course —"

"It's about the most insulting thing he could think of," gasped Ron, coming back up. "Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who is Muggle-born — you know, non-magic parents. There are some wizards — like Malfoy's family — who think they're better than everyone else because they're what people call pure-blood." He gave a small burp, and a single slug fell into his outstretched hand. He threw it into the basin and continued, "I mean, the rest of us know it doesn't make any difference at all. Look at Neville Longbottom — he's pure-blood and he can hardly stand a cauldron the right way up."

"An' they haven't invented a spell our Hermione can' do," said Hagrid proudly, making Hermione go a brilliant shade of magenta.

"It's a disgusting thing to call someone," said Ron, wiping his sweaty brow with a shaking hand. "Dirty blood, see. Common blood. It's ridiculous. Most wizards these days are half-blood anyway. If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out." Roselyn nodded and chimed in

"Don't listen to him Hermione, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. He was just mad because he knew you were right about the team."

Ron retched and ducked out of sight again.

"Well, I don' blame yeh fer tryin' ter curse him, Ron," said Hagrid loudly over the thuds of more slugs hitting the basin. "Bu' maybe it was a good thing yer wand backfired. 'Spect Lucius Malfoy would've come marchin' up ter school if yeh'd cursed his son. Least yer not in trouble."

Roselyn rose an eyebrow and looked at Ron who was still burping up slugs and wrinkled her nose 'I suppose if that's not trouble then I'm not really sure I want to know what is.' She thought to herself.

"Harry," said Hagrid abruptly as though struck by a sudden thought. "Gotta bone ter pick with yeh. I've heard you've bin givin' out signed photos. How come I haven't got one?"

Rose burst out laughing as Harry furiously wrenched his teeth apart, his face turning red.

"I have not been giving out signed photos," he said hotly. "If Lockhart's still spreading that around —"

Hagrid also broke down laughing at her brother.

"I'm on'y jokin'," he said, patting Harry genially on the back and sending him face first into the table. "I knew yeh hadn't really. I told Lockhart yeh didn' need teh. Yer more famous than him without tryin'." Roselyn giggled, 'oh to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation' she thought, wishing she could have seen Lockharts face when told that.

"Bet he didn't like that," said Harry, sitting up and rubbing his chin.

"Don' think he did," said Hagrid, his eyes twinkling. "An' then I told him I'd never read one o' his books an' he decided ter go. Treacle fudge, Ron?" he added as Ron reappeared.

"No thanks," said Ron weakly. "Better not risk it."

"Come an' see what I've bin growin'," said Hagrid as Harry, Roselyn and Hermione finished the last of their tea.

In the small vegetable patch behind Hagrid's house were a dozen of the largest pumpkins Roselyn had ever seen. Each was the size of a large boulder.

"Gettin' on well, aren't they?" said Hagrid happily. "Fer the Halloween feast… should be big enough by then."

"What've you been feeding them?" said Harry.

Hagrid looked over his shoulder to check that they were alone.

"Well, I've bin givin' them — you know — a bit o' help —"

Roselyn recognized the pink umbrella leaning against the cabin as the same one he swung around to give Dudley his pigs tail.

Roselyn had long ago figured that his wand was hidden inside it, that or the handle actually was the wand. Hagrid wasn't supposed to use magic. He had been expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, but she nor Harry had never found out why.

"An Engorgement Charm, I suppose?" said Hermione, halfway between disapproval and amusement. "Well, you've done a good job on them."

"That's what yer little sister said," said Hagrid, nodding at Ron. "Met her jus' yesterday." Hagrid looked sideways at Harry, his beard twitching. "Said she was jus' lookin' round the grounds, but I reckon she was hopin' she might run inter someone else at my house." He winked at Harry. "If yeh ask me, she wouldn' say no ter a signed —"

"Oh, shut up," said Harry. Roselyn frowned, wondering why Ginny hadn't invited her while Ron snorted with laughter and the ground was sprayed with slugs.

"Watch it!" Hagrid roared, pulling Ron away from his precious pumpkins.

It was nearly lunchtime and Roselyn was ready to go and eat, she also wanted to find Ginny and see why she didn't seem to want to hang out with her anymore. They said good-bye to Hagrid and walked back up to the castle, Ron hiccoughing occasionally, but only bringing up two very small slugs.

They had barely set foot in the cool entrance hall when a voice rang out, "There you are, Potter — Weasley." Professor McGonagall was walking toward them, looking stern. "You will both do your detentions this evening."

"What're we doing, Professor?" said Ron, nervously suppressing a burp.

"You will be polishing the silver in the trophy room with Mr. Filch," said Professor McGonagall. "And no magic, Weasley — elbow grease."

Roselyn gave Ron a sympathetic look, she hadn't been at school for long, but even she didn't like Filch. It was a well know fact that Argus Filch, the caretaker, was loathed by every student in the school.

"And you, Potter, will be helping Professor Lockhart answer his fan mail," said Professor McGonagall. Roselyn crinkled her nose, suddenly feeling very sorry for her brother.

"Oh n — Professor, can't I go and do the trophy room, too?" said Harry desperately.

"Certainly not," said Professor McGonagall, raising her eyebrows. "Professor Lockhart requested you particularly. Eight o'clock sharp, both of you." Roselyn frowned at her.

"I thought you didn't condone torture here Professor." she said. The corner of Professor McGonagall's mouth twitched but she didn't say anything and continued on her way.

Harry and Ron slouched into the Great Hall in states of deepest gloom, Hermione behind them, wearing a well-you-did-break-school-rules sort of expression. Roselyn sighed

"Harry, can we maybe hang out tomorrow?" she asked, looking at him hopefully. Harry looked at her and gave a weak smile, but Roselyn didn't take offence, especially after knowing what his detention would be

"Of course, lets meet down by the great lake after breakfast okay?" Roselyn smiled and gave him a hug

"Thanks Harry, I'm going to go talk to Ginny." She walked over to where the red headed girl was sitting and sat next to her

"Hey Ginny, what have you been up to? I haven't seen much of you outside of class." Ginny looked up and gave a brief uncomfortable look before smiling

"Sorry Rose, I guess I've just been sort of home sick." Roselyn smiled sympathetically at her, she didn't really understand that because she really didn't miss the Dursleys, but she knew that Ginny was really close to her parents.

"I'm sorry Gin. Tell you what, how about we get Luna and Astoria and go down and explore the grounds?"

"Astoria Greengrass?" Ginny asked hesitantly. Roselyn nodded before pausing and looking closer at Ginny who was eyeing the Slythrin table where Astoria sat with a distrustful eye. Roselyn frowned "Ginny, don't judge her just because of what house she's in. She's really quite nice and you both got along with each other earlier this year." Ginny flushed at being caught and bit her lip before nodding, slowly grinning.

"Oh ok. You go get her and I'll get Luna and we'll go explore the grounds." Roselyn hopped up and smiled excitedly.

"Great, meet you just outside the Great Hall ok?" they both nodded and Roselyn walked confidently over to the Slythrin table.

"Hey, Astoria!" She called as she came into ear shot of the dark haired girls, when they looked up to see Roselyn, she continued, "Ginny, Luna and I were going down to explore the grounds, would you like to come with us?" She sat down in next to her, to the general astonishment of the other Slythrins. Astoria nodded and got up, keeping her face from showing to much emotion.

"Sure." Astoria said before she paused and tilted her head as she glanced uncertainly over to Luna and Ginny who had just left, "You sure they're okay with me coming?" Roselyn sighed, she knew that Astoria was talking about Ginny, seeing as how she didn't care too much for Luna.

"Ya, I'm sure. Ginny is willing to give you a chance, so just don't be a complete prat and you'll get along." Astoria giggled

"In other words don't act like Draco Malfoy and his friends?" Roselyn gave a cheeky grin.

"Exactly. And considering you're nothing like him, there won't be a problem!" The two laughed as they exited the Hall to meet the other two. When they met up Roselyn introduced them

"Great! Now all we need is a brunette and our group will be complete!" Rose said, grinning. the four girls looked at each other for a moment before bursting out into giggles.

"Yes, but if you want one of each hair color then you or I need to change the color of our hair." Ginny said, with a teasing smirk. Rose thought about it before nodding

"Yes, that must mean that you need to color your hair because there's only enough room for one ginger and that's me." Ginny mock scoffed as the group started to make its way out of the entryway.

"Why do you get to keep your hair?" She asked incredulously.

"She is after all the oldest." Luna said, nodding sagely.

"So?" Ginny pouted. Astoria rolled her eyes and laughed.

"I don't know about you three, but I thought we were out here to explore the grounds, not argue about hair color. And anyways, neither of you have the same color red, Ginny has a lovely auburn red color and Roselyn's is a nice strawberry blond color." Roselyn and Ginny blinked at each other, shrugged then laughed and headed out the door.

"Your right, let's go see what we can find." Roselyn said, leading the way. After walking around the grounds for a bit the group decided to go back inside and count the stairs, accidently finding the kitchens when they found the picture of a bowl of fruit and Roselyn reached up to point at the pear, and touched it, making it giggle and swing open.

"Wow!" Roselyn said in surprise when a huge group of house elves turned to greet the girls.

"Hello Missus's! what can Milly do for you?" Asked a slightly older looking elf. The girls blinked at eachother before Astoria asked,

"Uh, can we have some pumpkin juice?" The elves chattered as they quickly brought the four girls their drinks.

"Thank you!" They coursed together before downing their drinks and leaving.

"I didn't know Hogwarts had House elves!" Roselyn said when the portrait finally closed behind them.

"Yes, they're house elves that have been mistreated and were released from serving their masters for whatever reason and came to Hogwarts." Luna said as they continued to explore. Roselyn nodded thoughtfully,

"Well, at least they all seem very happy." She said. Ginny laughed and nodded,

"Seem? They were all practically clamoring to help! I think they were pretty pleased." She said, the girls all laughed before continuing on their way

The next day Roselyn waited for Harry as they had agreed out by the lake after breakfast. As she waited she pulled her art book and pencil and started to draw the lake. As the day progressed and her drawing became closer to being done Roselyn started to become impatient with Harry. 'where is he?' she wondered as she looked around. She suddenly spotted him sitting a bit farther away with Ron and Hermione, they were all talking about something or other and Roselyn frowned, hurt that he would forget about her for his friends.

Roselyn stood up and strode angrily over to him.

"If you didn't want to come on a walk with me you could have just told me, rather than blow me off completely. I thought that we'd still be able to hang out when we came here, but you haven't seemed to want to talk to me at all." She sniffed and blinked back tears before turning on her heels and running away. She ignored her brother's startled yell for her to wait and got all the way to the lake before she tripped and landed on her hands and knees. She hissed as she pulled her hand up to examine. She had cut open her hand on a sharp rock.

"Rosie! Are you okay?" she heard Harry's voice right behind her. She huffed and sat on the ground and rubbed the back of her hands on her eyes to keep the tears from falling.

"I'm fine. Go away." But instead of going away, Harry sat down next to her and grabbed her injured palm, examining it before bending over and blowing on it gently.

"I'm sorry Rosie." He muttered, "I didn't mean to forget. I just…" He sighed and shifted uneasily. "I had a bad night." Roselyn looked over to him and studied him, and he did in deed look like he had a sleepless night what with the dark circles under his eyes

"What happened?" She asked softly, not sure if she was ready to forgive him yet. Harry frowned before recounting his detention and the voice he heard. Roselyn frowned thoughtfully

"Hmmm, I highly doubt that Lockheart heard the voice, I mean, the guys a complete ponce and probably couldn't lie to save his life…. I dunno Harry, I'd go tell Dumbledore at least." Harry frowned and shook his head

"Nah, maybe if I hear it again k? for now, I believe I promised to hang out with you today." Roselyn studied him closely before sighing and nodding. She let him help her up and they started to meander around the lake.

"So how are your classes going?" He asked her curiously. Roselyn smiled excitedly.

"Oooh! I love them! I especially love Charm's and Potions, though Transfiguration is good too." Harry looked at her in surprise,

"You like Potions? Really?" Rose nodded.

"Yes! I'm really good at them and Professor Snape's not to bad, a little bad tempered, but he's okay." Harry stared at her in disbelief for a moment before shaking his head in confusion.

"I don't get it. If he like's you, then why did he immediately hate me so much?" he asked. Roselyn shrugged,

"You told me that last year Proffessor Dumbledore told you that he and dad didn't like each other, and everyone that knew dad say's you look just like him, so maybe that's why." She theorized. Harry thought about it for a moment before shrugging, a scowl on his face,

"Well, he doesn't have to take it out on me." He said. Rose just giggled and led the topic elsewhere.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: don't own Harry Potter unfortunately.**

 **A/N: Sorry for the extremely long wait, other than having a bad case of writers block, life has been happening and writing was so not what i was concerned about. however, hopefully now that life is calming down a little for a while, i can finish this story off in a decent amount of time, but no promises.**

Chapter 8: The Deathday Party.

The month of September went by in a blur for Rose, her classes all seemed to go by quickly as she got the hang of performing magic. She and her friends had also fallen into a comfortable routine, using their shared free time for finishing their homework as they got it and for exploring the castle. On the weekends they would visit Hagrid for a little, he had been surprised at first to see Astoria with them but had quickly warmed up to the dark haired Slythrin, and Rose would spend an hour or so with Harry so they could catch up with each other. Rose also spent the weekends researching various customs of the wizarding world, their history (because let's face it, History of Magic was duller than dull), and practicing her magic.

Unfortunately, as October arrived, so did an unpleasant damp chill that blanketed the grounds and seeped into the castle causing many of the students and staff succumb to colds and the flu.

The first Friday of the month, Rose woke up feeling groggy, unsure if she was hot or cold, and achy all over.

"Ugg," She groaned as she rolled out of the bed, falling on the floor in a pile of blankets. She could hear one of the girls walk over to her and shake her. It took her a while to realize it was Luna.

"Rose, Rose are you ok?" The other girl asked, her usually dreamy voice was gone and held concern. Rose nodded and pushed herself up.

"Yeah, I'm good." She muttered. She and Luna stared at each other in silence for a moment before Rose sighed. "We should get ready for class." Luna frowned before nodding slowly.

"Maybe you should go to the hospital wing." She suggested as Rose slowly pulled on her robes.

"I will at lunch time. We're already running a bit late." Rose replied. Usually she would be rushing around frantically at the thought of being late to class, especially Transfiguration, but she couldn't seem to muster the energy to hurry. Luna watched her for a moment before also getting dressed, putting on some garlic earrings. When Rose raised an eyebrow at her, questioning why she wasn't wearing her favorite radish earrings, she explained.

"Garlic wards off the germs."

Rose just shrugged and nodded. It sounded odd, but Rose could vaguely remember overhearing one of her elementary teachers saying that garlic did help, though she thought it was actually supposed to be ingested, she didn't protest.

Slowly, the girls made their way to class, skipping breakfast and just barely made it in time for the class to start. Rose sunk down in her usual seat in the front and continued to stare blankly at the board that had the day's lesson on it. Usually she would be writing the lesson down, but she couldn't seem to concentrate very well.

"Quiet down!" Professor McGonagall said as she strolled into the classroom. She turned to the class and continued, "Today we will learn how to turn beetles into buttons…." As she continued, Rose slowly tuned out, her eyes glazing over. It wasn't until Luna nudged her that she realized that Professor McGonagall had called her name and was now scrutinizing her closely. Rose blinked,

"Sorry Professor, what did you ask?" She questioned. The Professor frowned and walked over to her, putting a hand on her forehead before sighing.

"Miss. Lovegood, please take Miss. Potter to the infirmary before she gets everyone else here sick." Rose stared at her blankly before letting Luna pull her up out of her chair and towards the door.

"What about class." She finally asked.

"I'm sure one of your classmates will be willing to lend you their notes." Professor McGonagall reassured before turning back to the class.

"Come on Rose." Luna said as she led her away. Rose just let her friend drag her away; her head was really just too stuffy for her to care.

It wasn't long before they reached the hospital wing and Luna was catching Madam Pomphrey's attention.

The Matron took one look at her and tutted, leading her to an empty bed and checking her over.

"No doubt about it, you've got the flu."

"Can you cure it?" Rose asked her. Madam Pomphrey smiled like she had been asked that a lot.

"Unfortunately, as much as people want it to, magic can't cure everything. I can give you a Pepperup potion to help clear up your head, but you really just need sleep and orange juice then wait for the bug to run its course." She explained. "I'd prefer to keep you here until I think you're not contagious any more, we don't need you infecting the whole school. Why don't you try and sleep? It looks like you only have the 24 hour bug so you will probably be feeling better this time tomorrow." Rose just nodded, thanked Luna for bringing her here, and lay down and fell asleep.

She didn't wake until several hours later when she was awakened by loud arguing.

"I'm not sick!" She heard a familiar voice argue halfheartedly.

"I already told you, you're looking really pale! Just take the potion!" Came a deeper, also familiar voice. Rose opened her eyes and blinked the sleep out of her eyes and saw Ginny being pushed into the hospital wing by Percy.

"Ginny? Percy? You might wanna quiet down before…" She trailed off as Madam Pomfery came out of her office looking beyond irritated.

"This is a hospital wing, not a quidditch pitch! Keep your voices down!" She scolded before taking a look at Ginny who Rose just noticed was looking extremely pale. "You look like you need a pepperup potion. Sit down!" She said, pointing to the bed next to Rose while she bustled back into her office to find the potion.

"What are you doing here Roselyn?" Percy asked his voice as haughty as usual.

"I've got the flu. Luna brought me this morning. What time is it?" She asked curiously. Percy looked at the watch on his wrist and said,

"It's ten till five."

Rose nodded her thanks and looked at Ginny who was sulking. "Are you feeling ok Ginny?" She asked.

Ginny nodded, sending a scowl at Percy. "I feel fine."

"Here we are." Madam Pomfery said as she came back, just in time to stop the incoming argument Rose could see was about to start up again. She pushed the vile into Ginny's hand who just looked at it in resignation before downing the whole thing. She made a face and Rose watched in fascination as her face turned an interesting shade of red before smoke started pouring out her ears. Madam Pomfery waited just long enough for her face to turn back to a normal shade (Though the smoke kept pouring out her ears) before turning to Rose and scrutinizing her and nodding.

"You're looking much better." She said, feeling her forehead with the back of her hand. "I'll give you a pepper up potion as well, then I think you'll be okay to go back to your dorm. Since it's the weekend I don't need to worry about you trying to attend class. You should stay inside and keep warm, perhaps stay in bed if you can." She said as she handed Rose her own bottle of pepper up potion. Rose wrinkled her nose at the bottle but downed it as well. Next, she felt like she had just ate a bottle of hot peppers and her face started to heat up before finally starting to cool down again. She shared a scowl with Ginny, knowing that they both looked like someone had lit their heads on fire.

"Now, off you go. I would suggest having some dinner before going to bed. Come back if you feel worse tomorrow." Madam Pomfery said after checking both girls over one more time before bustling off again.

"Thank goodness, lets go!" Ginny muttered, hopping off the bed. Rose nodded her agreement and also got up. Percy sniffed and walked them out the door before stopping.

"This is where we part ways, I have some prefect things to do. Be sure to eat well Ginny or I'll owl mother." He said, nodding goodbye to the two before walking off.

"I wonder where he learned to be like that?" Rose wondered aloud once he was out of ear shot.

"Who knows? Lets go eat. Hopefully our ears stop smoking soon, I don't wanna spend the rest of the night like this." Ginny grumbled. Rose nodded her agreement.

"Yeah, me neither. I also need to get all the notes from class that I missed today. I don't want to fall behind. Are you and the others still going to Hagrids this weekend to help in the pumpkin patch?" Rose asked. Ginny hesitated for a moment before nodding her head.

"Yes. I'm glad you reminded me. I was going to write in my diary and do homework this weekend, but I can do that too." She said. Rose's eyebrows rose.

"That shouldn't take you all weekend to do. And if you leave writing in your diary for just before bed time you still have tons of time to do other things."

Ginny frowned for a moment before agreeing, "I know. I hope you feel better Rose. Tell Luna I'll meet her at Hagrids after breakfast alright?" She said as they reached the Great hall and started to part ways. Rose agreed and went to sit down.

"Are you feeling better Rose?" Luna asked without even looking up from her book that she was reading upside down again. Rose didn't even ask how she knew who it was, and just sat down, grabbing a few things she thought would be easy on her stomach.

"I'm feeling much better. Thanks for taking me to the Hospital Wing this morning Luna." She replied. "Can I borrow your notes from class today?" She asked. Luna nodded.

"Of course. How was Ginny? I saw she had smoke pouring out her ears like you."

"Oh, she had a small cold, but Madam Pomfrey gave both of us a pepper up potion. Ginny wanted me to tell you she'll me you at Hagrids after breakfast tomorrow. I wont be able to go because I'm still sick and the only reason I was let out was because it's the weekend and I can just rest in bed all day."

Luna nodded and the two fell silent and continued to eat their meal in relative silence.

Thankfully Rose recovered quickly from her bought of sickness and was able to go back to classes and hanging out with her friends that Monday. Beyond being sick briefly, the four friends suddenly found themselves having to deal with quite a few bullies who had decided that Luna was the perfect target. Many times her personal items would go missing, such as clothes, books, her shoes, and various pieces of jewelry she owned. Sometimes people even tried to hex her in the hallways, though that was stopped real fast when Ginny, Rose, and Astoria would retaliate with their own vicious hexes that they had spent one weekend practicing just for the chance to get back at some of the meaner bullies.

"Look, there goes Loony Lovegood." One of the older Ravenclaw girls whispered loudly to her friends as Rose and Luna walked out the dorm for class one day, "She looks like she doesn't even know what a comb is. I mean she acts oblivious enough, she doesn't need to neglect her looks too."

Rose glared at the group, but couldn't retort because Luna had grabbed her arm and pulled her out.

"I don't see why you don't go to Professor Flitwick about them! I mean, teasing is one thing, but taking your things and firing hexes at you is completely different! They shouldn't be allowed to do that." Rose grumbled to her blonde friend. Luna just patted her arm, sending her a sweet smile.

"It really doesn't bother me. Those who do it are people I don't much care for." She said to her. "They'll eventually grow board and leave me alone."

"Yeah, but I still say you should go to Professor Flitwick about it." Rose replied. The two continued to chat as they made their way down to the dungeons for their potions class.

"Are you going to introduce your brother to us soon?" Luna asked finally as she took her seat.

"Yeah, I was going to ask if he wanted to meet you all after the Halloween feast. He already knows Ginny so now I just need to introduce you and Astoria." Rose said as she took out her things and started to write down the notes on the board.

"That's good, I was beginning to think you were scared to introduce us." Astoria spoke up as she took her seat behind the two. Rose smiled guiltily.

"Yeah, I'm a little nervous about introducing you because you're a Slythrin, but Harry did tell me he wouldn't mind if I made friends with someone from your house." Rose informed them. Astoria looked at her skeptically.

"Alright, well, don't let him bully you into not being friends with me. Okay?" She told her.

Rose looked at her reassuringly, hearing the slight doubt in her voice. "Don't worry, I'm not going to stop being friends with you."

Astoria smiled smiling in thanks, but didn't say anything as Professor Snape swooped into the room.

Thankfully Rose didn't have to wait long to find her brother because just two days before Halloween he approached her looking equal parts frustrated, irritated, and resigned. She blinked and looked at him

"Whats up Harry?" she asked hesitantly. He sighed

"I promised Nick, you know our house ghost that I'd attend his Deathday party Halloween night, do you want to come?" Roselyn blinked and wrinkled her nose

"Deathday? Uhh, no thanks Harry, I think I'd rather attend the feast if you don't mind." Harry sighed and nodded

"I don't blame you. I'd rather go to the feast too, but I promised Nick I'd go since he got me out of detention the other night." Roselyn raised an eyebrow

"What'd you do this time? I thought you'd be avoiding detention." Harry groaned

"I was going back to the common room after quidditch practice and I was all muddy, I started talking to Nick when Filch caught me and tried to give me detention. Nick went and caused a distraction so that I could get out." Roselyn nodded

"I see. Well, try to have fun. You might want to eat before you go through. I don't think a ghost will be able to eat human food." Harry nodded and turned to leave before hesitating and turning back to her

"Rose, I've been meaning to ask but, I heard you were friends with a Slythrin, is that true?" Roselyn looked at Harry's face, seeing the disapproval, and she immediately became defensive of her friend

"Yes I am. Her name is Astoria Greengrass, why? What's wrong with being her friend?" Harry hesitated, startled to see the stubborn and defiant look on his little sisters face before saying

"I just want you to be careful Rose, Slythrins aren't…. they aren't really good friends to have." Roselyn frowned and crossed her arms

"Why not? Astoria is really sweet. Just because she's a Slythrin doesn't automatically make them evil. And you did say that if I got into Slythrin that you would still love me so I don't see what the problem is with me having one as a friend. I mean, its not like she's Malfoy, and she's not biased." Harry's eyebrows rose in surprise, Roselyn very rarely got upset with him for things like this.

"Rose, you know what people say about Slythrin." He cut off at the absolutely mutinous look on her face.

"THAT was a very Durslyish thing to say Harry. Do you actually know any Slytherins or are you basing them all on Malfoy and his goons?" Harry was brought up short. He paused then said softly

"Your right, and I'm sorry Rose, can I meet your friend?" Roselyn paused, looking at Harry for any sign of mistrust and found none, so she nodded

"Of course, I've been meaning to introduce you to her and Luna, why don't we meet up the morning after Halloween?" she chirped brightly.

Harry nodded, smiling at her "Alright, we can meet outside of the Great Hall at Breakfast." He then went back over to his friends and continued on his way to wherever he was going while Roselyn went on to the Library. She wanted to sit somewhere and draw quietly, away from everyone else for a while.

After about an hour of drawing she noted that someone was standing a few feet away. She looked up and saw that it was a Gryfindor boy with a round face and sandy hair looking shyly at her. When he saw her looking he flushed before asking

"Uh, hi, do you mind if I sit and do my homework here?" Roselyn nodded and gestured to the seat next to her

"Uh, sure. I'm Roselyn, Roselyn Potter, you can call me Rose, but never Rosie!"

"I know, I'm Neville Longbottom, I share a dorm with your brother." The boy said, smiling shyly at her as he sat down. Roselyn smiled at him, she remembered Harry telling her about him.

"oh, you're the one that won Gryfindor the house cup last year." Neville blushed and started to splutter,

"Oh… I, I didn't win it." Roselyn tilted her head and looked at him with a smile on her face.

"that's not what Harry said, he said that your ten points tilted the scale and it caused Gryffindor to win" Neville ducked his head

"well, it wasn't all me." Rose smiled and shrugged, leaving it alone since he was so embarrassed and when back to her drawing. Neville sat down and pulled out some of his homework. They sat in silence for a little, Rose drawing and Neville trying to do his homework, but Rose could see that Neville was quickly becoming frustrated with it. After a few moments Rose sighed and put her drawing pad down and scooted over to him.

"What are you working on?" Neville was startled and looked up before flushing and saying

"I'm trying to do my Potions homework, but I'm not very good at it." Rose nodded and looked at him thoughtfully before saying,

"Can I help? I'm rather good at potions." Neville looked uncertainly at her.

"I dunno, this is second year stuff." Roselyn shrugged and smiled

"That's okay, I read all of Harry's books and I'm sure I can still help." She thought about it for a moment before nodding, "I'll help you with potions and you can help me with Herbology." She didn't really need a lot of help in Herbology but she could admit that it was not her strongest subject by a long shot, this was more of a chance to help Neville with his confidence and to get to know him better. Neville though didn't seem very certain.

"I dunno, I'm not that good-" Rose cut him off

"Harry told me you're the best in your year in that class. Even Hermione said that you're better than her. You're the perfect person to tutor me." Neville blinked before giving in his face having turned a new shade of red.

"Alright then." Rose smiled and looked down to see what he was doing, "Alright, this is what you need to do." And she launched into explanations, stopping every once and a while to make sure he was still following. After they were done Neville smiled at her

"Thanks Rose. I was getting worried about passing." He looked over to her notepad curiously, "What were you doing before I came in?" this time Roselyn blushed

"Oh, I was drawing. I like to draw and came in here to draw for a while." Neville nodded

"Can I see?" Rose hesitated a moment before giving her pad to him

"But you can't make fun okay?" Neville gave her a look and said seriously,

"Of course I won't." He then proceeded to look through her pictures. Rose waited nervously for his opinion. She didn't share her pictures with people often because she was afraid that they wouldn't like them. The only person she really showed pictures to was her brother and Mr. Lupin. After a few nerve racking moments Neville gave it back to her and smiled at her

"Those are really good Rose! But why don't you do more pictures of people? Those are mostly scenery stuff." Rose paused a moment before saying

"Well, I need people to stand still to get use to drawing them, and no one wants to stay still for me except Harry and he doesn't really want to stay still for me a lot recently because he has his friends he likes to be with and things he has to do." Neville nodded his understanding before saying in a thoughtful tone

"I'll do it." Rose blinked in surprise

"Really?" she asked doubtfully. Neville nodded, the look of sincerity on his face convincing her. She smiled a big smiled and hugged him excitedly

"Oh thank you Neville! Can we try now?" Neville smiled and nodded

"Sure! What do you need me to do?" Rose smiled and got ready to draw him.

"Just sit there and talk to me, but don't move too much." Neville nodded and Rose started to draw him.

"Do you like being in Ravenclaw?" Rose smiled brightly.

"For the most part. Their all really nice except when it comes to Luna Lovegood. They like to pick on her because she's kind of strange. What about you? Do you like Gryffindor?" Neville shrugged and smiled

"Yes, I'm not very brave though, so I'm not entirely sure why the hat put me where it did. But I'm happy because my parents were both in Gryffindor." Rose nodded as she continued to shade her picture.

"I don't really know what house my parents were in. but I do know that they were head boy and girl, so I'm hoping to be a head when I get to seventh year." Neville smiled

"I bet you will get it." Rose smiled gratefully

"Thanks. Alright, I'm done, wanna see?" she asked. Neville nodded enthusiastically so Rose handed him the drawing. He looked at it for a moment before smiling and handing it back

"It's good. Not as good as your scenery pictures, but defiantly close." Rose scoffed, but Neville knew she wasn't upset because she was trying not to smile

"I don't think so, your nose is all funny in this picture and your mouth is strange looking too." Neville tried to stifle a laugh

"So? Then work on noses and mouths for a while. Anyways, I need to be going. thanks for helping me with my homework." Rose nodded and stood up too.

"No prob. Lets do this every Saturday at one ok? And thanks for being my test subject for my drawing." Neville nodded, agreeing to meet on Saturdays and they parted ways. Rose wandered around for a little before finally deciding to head back to her common room. When she knocked the Eagle head asked

"Always wax, yet always wane: I melt, succumbed to the flame. Lighting darkness, with fate unblest, I soon devolve to shapeless mess." Rose frowned a moment, thinking it over

"Hmm, a candle is always wax but always wanes, when you light it, it melts. It also lights the darkness and melts into a shapeless mess the longer its lit sooo, a candle." She said

"Well-reasoned." Responded the eagle before the door opened. Rose walked up to her dorm got ready for the night, not realizing that the next day would be the start of a downhill slope for her year at school.

Halloween day passed in a flurry for Rose, she spent the time doing homework and looking for Ginny, whom she couldn't seem to find, so she stayed with Astoria, and Luna. They spent their time trying to find secret passage ways until dinner where they split ways, Astoria heading to the Slythrin table and Luna and Rose going to the Ravenclaw table.

Rose enjoyed the feast, the dancing skeletons were fun to watch and the food was amazing. Rose looked around and frowned when she didn't see Ginny, she turned to Luna and asked

"What do you think is wrong with Ginny? I haven't seen her all day." Luna looked over to the Gryffindor table and frowned slightly, looking quite unlike herself.

"I don't know, she's been slightly off color lately so she could just be sick." Rose nodded, unconvinced. She didn't worry about it again until the Great Hall started emptying out and everyone started to go back to her dorms. She and Luna were just about to split off from everyone when everyone went silent. Rose and Luna were small enough that they were able to duck under people to see what was happening.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were standing in the middle of the Hall next to Filch's cat who was hanging by her tail with the words 'The Chamber of Secrets has been open. Enemies of the Heir beware.' Next to her.

Rose's blood ran cold.

"Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!" Draco Malfoy shouted in the silence, pushing himself to the front of the group and looking quite gleeful at what was happening.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: i don't own this series.**

 **A/N: sorry the chapters a bit short, but here it is none the less.**

Chapter 9: Writing on the wall

Obviously attracted by the large crowd and the shouting, Filch shoved his way through the crowd to try and get to the front of the problem.

"Out of my way, what is going on?" He growled out at the students before he made it to the front of the group and his face went from irritated and grumbling to outright horror at the sight of his beloved cat, stumbling back in shock as his face went an alarming shade of white. For a moment, Rose feared he was going to faint, but instead his eyes landed on her brother, Ron, and Hermione and his eyes bulged, face rapidly coloring again.

"My cat! You've murdered my cat! What did you do to her?! I'll kill you!" He shrieked out, lunging for Harry who reeled back in shock. Rose gasped and lurched forward in her own surprise, wanting to help her brother but still feeling to shocked to do much.

"Argus!"

Filch stopped as Dumbledore called his name. The group of students turned to see that a number of the other teachers, including all of the House Heads, Lockheart, and Sinistra, pushing their own way through the crowd. In moments, Dumbledore was standing in front of Mrs. Noris and the dripping sign. After observing it for a few moments, he managed to detach the cat from the torch bracket and had her cradled safely in his arms.

"Come with me Argus. You three as well." He said pointedly to Harry and his friends who looked uncertainly at each other before stepping closer to him.

Lockhart stepped forward eagerly.

"My office is nearest, Headmaster — just upstairs — please feel free —"

"Thank you, Gilderoy," said Dumbledore.

The silent crowd parted to let them pass. Lockhart, looking excited and important, hurried after Dumbledore; so did Professors McGonagall and Snape. Rose caught Harry's eye and tried to give him an encouraging smile, but it came out more like a wince. Harry nodded back but Rose could tell he wasn't reassured at all. In fact, all three of them looked ill and slightly panicky.

"Alright, move along! Back to your dorms! There's nothing for you to see here." Came the squeaky voice of Professor Flitwick. Slowly, students started to file out of the Hallway, a hushed murmur of voices as people tried to figure out what was happening. Rose came up to Professor Flitwick and asked

"Professor? Is Harry going to be in trouble? I know he didn't do it, he was at Sir Nicks deathday party." Professor Flitwick looked unsure and uneasy.

"I'm sure he'll be fine Miss. Potter. Go back to the dorm, you'll find out in the morning I'm sure." Rose nodded slowly and looked apprehensively at the message before turning and finding Luna before heading up to their common room. When the two girls got up into their dorm room they were ambushed by Callie Trent, Tessa Herring, and Sheila Guthrie.

"Roselyn! What did your brother do? What's happening?" They asked. Rose looked uneasily to Luna who was already getting ready for bed before looking back at the three girls.

"Harry didn't do anything, he was just in the wrong spot at the wrong time and I'm not entirely sure what's happening." Rose said, hoping it was true rather than knowing it was true. Callie huffed and tossed her curly chocolaty hair over her shoulder.

"Whatever, I want to know who did that to Mrs. Noris. I bet she was killed because she caught someone out of bounds." Tessa and Sheila both nodded their agreement. Rose looked between the three girls with a frown on her face.

The three girls were all gossips and all cared about how they looked. Even when they were going to bed they were all wearing really nice pajama's and had their hair all nicely brushed.

Callie was definitely the leader of the trio and whatever she said went. Even after only being here for a month she had made sure to get right in with all the gossip. Rose sighed and left the three to their girl talk as she got ready for bed.

Rose looked over to Luna who was biting her lip as she stared off into nothing, looking thoughtful and quite worried from her spot on her bed.

"Are you alright?" she asked her quietly. Luna blinked and looked over to her and slowly shook her head.

"I don't know. I think I've heard about the chamber before, but it wasn't anything good. I'm going to write to daddy and see what he has to say about all of this." Luna told her quietly before laying down.

Rose bit her lip, she was worried that Harry, Ron and Hermione were going to be expelled and she wanted to know what the Chamber of secrets was and what happened to Mrs. Noris, and now she also wanted to know what Luna was talking about. She laid down and after wishing Luna a good night she proceeded to dream of blood and wide eyed dead bodies of her brother and friends.

For a few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs. Norris. Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked, as though he thought the attacker might come back. Rose had seen him scrubbing the message on the wall with Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover, but to no effect; the words still gleamed as brightly as ever on the stone.

Ginny also wasn't looking well, she seemed particularly skittish whenever the group had to walk through the corridor with the message, her eyes would constantly dart around as though waiting for someone would jump out at her and attack and she absolutely refused to look at the message itself when Astoria said that she had wanted a closer look since she didn't get the chance the first time around.

She also got upset whenever anyone talked about Mrs. Noris, often bursting out into tears when anything bad was mentioned about her. Ron found this out first hand when he had tried to reassure her that what happened to Mrs. Noris was no big loss.

"Don't worry about Mrs. Noris, honestly, everyone's better off without her." He tried to tell her, not noticing Ginny's trembling lip and watery eyes. "things like this just doesn't happen often at Hogwarts, they'll catch the person who did this in no time and have him out of here." He continued, throwing an arm around her. "I just hope he's got time to get Filch before he's expelled."

He yelped and pulled away as Rose and Hermione both hit him over his head for that. Rose looked to Ginny who had blanched, looking like someone had just told her to go and petrify Filch herself.

"Don't worry Ginny, don't listen to your brother. The professors will catch who's doing it and I'm sure Madam Pomfrey will be able to unpetrify Mrs. Noris soon." Rose spoke up. Ginny looked at her and, though she still didn't seem reassured, she nodded. Rose eyed her friend worriedly and swore to keep an eye on her because she was acting odd.

To Rose's surprise, many people (Mostly Ravenclaws) were now spending a lot of time in the Library reading. While that wasn't unusual for some people, the sheer amount of people in the library was strange. Rose herself was able to avoid the library only because she had read up on the Chamber in her own copy of Hogwarts, A History. She wasn't surprised that one of the founders had been biased, though she did think that maybe he was biased against only muggles and not muggle-borns simply because of the time that he came from, any witch or wizard of any background would have been persecuted, but she didn't know for certain because she only had one book to go off of. What she wanted to know was what the monster in the chamber was. She wouldn't be able to do any more research until she had more facts though.

Rose also found quite a bit of her time trying to squash the rumors that had started about her brother being the heir of Slytherin. She became very upset when people started skirting around him and simply because she was his sister, her as well. She was grateful to find that her friends, Astoria, Luna, Ginny, Colin and Neville didn't seem to care either way, and that made her feel much better.

In fact she had nearly forgotten about it all until Colin had come up to her one day and asked if it was true that Harry really was Slytherins Heir. She had snapped at him at the time, telling him not to be stupid before then thinking about how she could go about proving it.

"Why don't you just ask a professor?" Astoria asked one day during potions as they continued to try and finish their potion.

"But what professor? I don't think any of them really do anything with genealogy." Rose frowned before saying "We need a bit more lacewing, the potions looking a little too yellow instead of green." Astoria frowned and checked her potions book before shrugging and following Rose's instruction.

"They may not have anything to do with it but they could probably point you in the right direction." Rose huffed but nodded. Anything to stay away from Madam Pince who creeped her out with how possessive she was of the library books. Soon Professor Snape started to stalk around the room and check the potions, sneering at some of the potions while nodding in reluctant approval to others. When he came over to Rose and Astoria's potion he raised an eyebrow at the potion. It was the only one in the room that didn't look watered down.

"Perfect potion. 5 points to Ravenclaw and Slytherin." Rose and Astoria beamed at each other and high fived before Snape dismissed the class. Rose waved Luna and Astoria on and went up to Professor Snapes desk.

"Professor?" He looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes Miss. Potter?" Rose paused before soldering on.

"I was curious to know if you knew, where I could go to in order to trace my lineage from my dad's side, since I doubt I could find any on mums side." She watched apprehensively as the Professors face darkened before quickly clearing. He leaned back and studied her for a moment.

"Have you not asked Madam Pince? She should be able to direct you to some books." Rose blushed and looked down sheepishly

"She gives me the creeps." She muttered. Professor Snape's eyebrow rose and he looked somewhat amused before he grabbed a quill and parchment and scribbled something down while saying

"I highly doubt anything would be in the library. You could write to the department of magical genealogy if you want to know more than just who your parents were." He handed her the paper that had the department name and the head of the department's name. Rose beamed at him

"Thank you sir!" he just nodded and watched as she spun around and raced out the door to where Luna and Astoria were waiting.

"Did he tell you?" Astoria asked. Rose nodded and looked down at the parchment again

"Yes. He told me to contact Gena Olgery in the Department of magical geneology about my questions." Luna nodded

"Mrs. Olgery is quite nice. She's friends with daddy." Rose nodded gratefully as they made their way down the hall to their next class.

After classes were over, Rose was surprised when Harry hunted her down.

"Rose! Come here real quick." Roselyn blinked in surprise and looked over to where Harry was gesturing her over into an empty classroom. She went over to him and was unsurprised to see Ron and Hermione there too.

"What is it? What's going on?" she asked. Ron and Harry looked worried and resigned while Hermione just looked determined. Harry sighed and started to explain.

"We want to know who the Heir of Slytherin is. Hermione knows of a potion that we can use and we wanted to know if you would help us make it since you are doing so well in potions." Rose blinked and frowned.

"Who do you think is the Heir? And what potion?" Harry hesitated before continuing

"We think Malfoy might know who it is. But obviously he won't tell us so Hermione knows a potion that we could use to turn ourselves into some Slytherins." Rose looked at them in disbelief.

"Why in the world do you think Malfoy is the Heir. Somehow I highly doubt it is."

Ron scoffed, "Come on Rose, his whole family has been in Slytherin and his father's evil enough. It's not a long shot that they had the key for centuries, handing it down Father to Son." Ron reasoned. Rose looked at him

"Your whole family's been in Gryffindor, that doesn't mean you're the Heir to Gryffindor. And what's this Potion that you want me to work on?" Hermione jumped in this time

"Polyjuice potion." Rose frowned as she tried to think if she had heard of it before shaking her head.

"Never heard of it. I'll tell you what. You show me the instructions for the potion and I'll talk you through the steps, but I'm not going to help you make the potion. I won't be held accountable if you get into trouble for anything and I defiantly won't help you with the interrogation." Harry nodded, probably having expected that. Rose groaned, "I can't believe I'm helping you." Harry grinned

"Thanks Rose. We'll talk to you as soon as we find the book okay?" Rose nodded and gave him a hug.

"Okay, I have a letter I have to write. Talk to you guys later." Rose then left the trio to talk amongst them. She decided to head to the library to write a letter to the Head of the Department of Magical Genealogy. Shortly after she finished her letter, she looked up to see Luna, Astoria, and Ginny hurrying into the library. Once they spotted her, they hurried over to her and sat down with her.

"Whats going on?" Rose asked them quietly. Astoria looked around to make sure no one was listening while Luna leaned forward, face serious

"Remember when I told you that I thought I had heard about the Chamber before? And that I was going to ask Daddy about it?" she asked Rose. Rose nodded slowly, not liking where this was going.

"Well, I just got his letter back and he told me that the last time the chamber was opened was about 50 years ago and before they found the culprit, one of the girls who were attacked was killed." Luna told the group, looking worriedly at them all.

"Well, at least we all don't have to worry to much, right? I mean, the three of us are all purebloods and Rose is a halfblood." Astoria pointed out.

"Yeah, but that just leaves a little over half the school who are muggleborns, not to mention that if more students are attacked the school will no doubt shut down. And just how does the monster know who is a muggleborn or not?" Rose pointed out. The group looked over to Ginny who was looking pale.

"Are you alright Ginny? Your looking a bit pale." Rose said, leaning forward to look at her closer. Astoria frowned and put a hand on her forehead.

"You feel fine, do you need to go to the hospital wing?" She asked. Ginny shook her head and gave them a small smile.

"Sorry guys, I feel fine. Just thinking about all this stuff with the chamber makes me nervous." She assured them.

"Me too, it makes me feel ill thinking about what could happen this year. I hope the culprit is found before anyone else is attacked." Rose said. The other three agreed with her.

"Well, I need to go mail this letter, you three want to come with me? I figure I can give Artemis a snack before I send her."

"sure, lets go! I can show you guys a short cut I found to the owlery on accident the other day too." Ginny said, cheering up a bit.

"Okay." Astoria and Luna agreed, also happy to be changing the topic.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: don't own.**

Chapter 10: The Rogue Bludger

To Rose's extreme dismay and disappointment, her DADA lessons didn't improve. Rumor of Professor Lockhearts disastrous class with the Second year Gryffindor and Hufflepuffs had spread quickly. In fact, occasionally people would still run across a pixie or two when walking from class to class. After that, Professor Lockheart had refrained from bringing in any creatures to class, a decision that had been surprisingly intelligent on his part. Instead, he chose to read passages from his books to them and sometimes reenacted some of the more dramatic bits. Thankfully he hadn't asked Rose to come up since the first time because she had turned red and completely clammed up in front of everyone, disliking that everyone was staring at her. No matter what he did, Professor Lockheart could not get Rose to move or speak and so let her sit back down where she had sunk down in her seat and refused to participate in classes the rest of the day.

On the rare occasion he would try to teach them a spell or two which always turned out to be quite the disaster. Despite the fact that the class consisted of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, by far one of the easier group pairings to teach, he was unable to actually teach any of the spells to them. Rose had become so fed up with this that she had decided to practice on her own in an empty classroom with some old defense books from the library. She had checked them out and read them thoroughly before trying to put the spells she came across to use by practicing them. When she had troubles she would in list one of her friends to help.

She had also gotten a few flying lessons under her belt. While she was definitely not the excellent flyer that everyone said that Harry was, she knew that with some practice she could be a fair flyer. Despite her initial fears of flying, once she was actually up in the air they all seemed to disappear and she enjoyed the feeling of the wind in her hair, and though she felt that she was not insane enough to want to play a sport on the broom, she wouldn't mind flying for the fun of it.

Unfortunately, several days after they had approached her about the potion, Harry and his friends had managed to get ahold of the book that had the potion in it. Rose had been hoping that they had either forgotten about it, or couldn't get permission to check the book out. But they had grabbed her away from Ginny who she had been trying to convince to go out to the lake with her to draw some like they had that summer, and dragged her to Moaning Murtles bathroom where they sat down to look over the Potion with her.

Rose looked over the admittedly very gruesome pages that described what ingredients were needed and the steps to make the potion, as well as all the disturbing ways the potion could go wrong if it was brewed wrong.

"I dunno you guys, this seems like a really sketchy potion to be doing the first time without supervision. I mean, if you do even the slightest thing wrong, it can end up really painful for you guys." Rose told them doubtfully.

"This is definitely the most difficult Potion I've ever seen." Hermione muttered as she also read over the potion. Rose scoffed,

"Considering you're only a second year who's really only still beginning to learn how to make potions, I don't doubt that. But this is a Sixth year potion which means there will be far more difficult potions than this out there." She said. Hermione scowled at her, but Rose ignored her. Hermione sometimes rubbed her raw with the way she acted and Rose had no patience for people who thought they knew everything when they clearly didn't.

"The Lacewing flies, leeches, fluxweed, and knotgrass you can get in the student store-cupboard, but the rest of these ingredients, powdered horn of a bicorn, shredded skin of a bloomslang, and bits of whoever your turning into… don't know how your going to get all that, not unless you plan to steal from Professor Snape, though I suppose you could owl order it from the apothecary." Rose said as she read down the list of ingredients again.

"Excuse me?" Ron asked sharply, "What d'you mean a bit of who we're changing into? I'm not drinking anything with Crabbe's toenails in it-"

Hermione rolled her eyes, "Don't be stupid Ronald, you don't need their toe nails. Anyways, we don't have to worry about the yet because we add it last." She said.

Rose sighed and explained to Ron and Harry, who were still looking grossed out and not entirely reassured, "It means a strand of hair. If you can figure out how to maybe knock them out for a few hours, you can grab a strand of hair, and get through the whole process without them accidentally walking in on you while you're doing your interrogation."

Harry continued to frown down at the book, running his hand through his hair like he usually did when nervous or frustrated.

"D'you realize how much we're going to have to steal? I don't know about you lot but I definitely didn't bring enough money to owl order these supplies. We'd have to break into Snape's private stores and I really don't think that's a good idea." He pointed out to her.

Hermione shut the book with a snap.

"Well, if you two are going to chicken out, fine," she said. There were bright pink patches on her cheeks and her eyes were brighter than usual. "I don't want to break rules, you know. I think threatening Muggle-borns is far worse than brewing up a difficult potion. But if you don't want to find out if it's Malfoy, I'll go straight to Madam Pince now and hand the book back in."

Rose scowled again at the girl. "You know, that's not a bad idea, instead of going yourselves, you could always tell a professor of your worries if you really think he's the one who's doing this. But I think you all aren't considering all the facts. Not to mention the Chamber was opened 50 years ago, there's no way he could be responsible. Neither could his father because not even Malfoy Sr. is old enough to have gone to school the last time this happened." Rose argued. Hermione glared back at her,

"At least we have a lead and I for one want these attacks to stop. It's not like any of the Professors would listen to us anyways." She snapped back. Ron sighed, bringing the girls attention to him.

"I never thought I'd see the day when you'd be persuading us to break rules," He moaned. "All right, we'll do it. But not toenails, okay?"

"How long will it take to make, anyway?" said Harry as Hermione, looking happier, opened the book again. Rose looked at the trio in disbelief, she could not imagine that they were willing to steal stuff for this.

"Well, since the fluxweed has got to be picked at the full moon and the lacewings have got to be stewed for twenty-one days… I'd say it'd be ready in about a month, if we can get all the ingredients."

"A month?" said Ron. "Malfoy could have attacked half the Muggle-borns in the school by then!" But Hermione's eyes narrowed dangerously again, and he added swiftly, "But it's the best plan we've got, so full steam ahead, I say." Harry turned to Rose and asked

"Is their anyway you can get the ingredients? You said that Snape liked you well enough." Rose scowled at him, upset that none of them were listening to her.

"I could, but he probably would want to know why I want it. He would probably recognize what potions the ingredients went to. And anyways, I think this whole idea is a dumb one anyways. Now sit down so I can give you guys the directions then you have to do it EXACTLY as I tell you too."

Hermione grit her teeth, even as Ron and Harry sat back down to listen. Rose gave her an irritated look.

"Don't, you asked me to help because I'm good at potions and this is the only time I'm going to help you all, then your completely on your own. And I'm not going to feel sorry for you all if something goes wrong." Hermione reluctantly nodded and took out some parchment to write on.

"Okay, you need to make sure you pick the fluxweed on the full moon which is here in three days, so make sure you remember that." Hermione nodded, writing the tip down.

"Yes, but we wont be ready to add the ingredients yet until the next full moon at least. So we should wait." Hermione pointed out. Rose frowned thoughtfully down at the book.

"I asked Professor Snape about that-" Before she was able to finish the three gasped and she looked at them startled, "what? What!"

"Why'd you ask him? Is he suspicious?" Ron demanded. Rose looked at them, offended,

"What d'you take me for? I asked about things in general, if you have to pick an ingredient at a certain time of the month, do you have to add it the same time or can it be whenever. He told me that unless the potion specifically asks for you to add said ingredient at a certain time of the month then it doesn't matter as long as you pick the ingredient at the correct time." Hermione was nodding her understanding while Ron and Harry just looked confused. Rose rolled her eyes, "Anyways, other than that the rest of the directions are pretty straight forward. Now, I'm going to leave and you three are on your own." She told them as she stood up again and left to go find Ginny once more.

Unsurprisingly, Rose found Ginny tucked away in a corner of the Library writing in her diary again.

"Ginny! So, now that I've escaped from our brothers and Hermione, we should really go walk around the lake." She said, plopping down into the chair across from Ginny. The other girl started almost violently and slammed her diary shut and looked up at Rose with a disgruntled frown.

"Don't do that!" She snapped as she quickly hid the diary from sight. Rose frowned at her.

"Well I'm sorry! Your acting like I was trying to read over your shoulder or something. I just wanted to hang out with you." She said back. Ginny blinked and took a breath before saying.

"I'm sorry Rose. You just startled me. I would like to go for a walk with you." Roselyn eyed the other girl closely before nodding, forgiving her without saying it and standing up.

"Well, lets go then. I really think you need to get out more, it might help you feel better." She told Ginny, eyeing the other girls pale complexion. Ginny looked briefly annoyed before sighing and nodding.

"You're probably right. Come on." She agreed. Thankfully it didn't take long for Ginny to snap out of her mood and was soon laughing and joking around with Roselyn.

Rose woke up early on Saturday morning, buzzing with excitement. She was excited to see her first Quidditch game. She was even more excited to finally see her brother fly. She got up and went about getting ready for the day. She was dressing in gold and red to support her brother since he wasn't playing Ravenclaw and she put her hair back into a bun with gold ribbon's hanging from it. Afterwards she turned and helped braid red and gold ribbons into Luna's hair before they left for breakfast.

When the girls got to the great hall, Rose immediately located her brother and went to wish him and his team good luck. She found them sitting at the Gryffindor table, all looking uptight and not speaking much.

"Harry!" Harry looked up and over to her. Rose could see that he was looking a little green.

"Hey Rose." He said. She smiled reassuringly at him.

"Cheer up Harry. I have no doubt you'll win today's match. Fast brooms doesn't make a team. And anyways, I'll be cheering you all on and we all know that I'm the only one who matters." She teasingly told him. Harry smiled gratefully

"Thanks Rose. I see your all decked out in Gryffindor colors." Rose nodded

"Of course. I have to cheer my brother on. Anyways, I'll probably see you after the match." She then turned to address the rest of the team, "Good luck everybody." All she got were murmurs of thanks before she turned to go eat.

Eleven o'clock came fast and the school started to make it's way down to the stadium. It was a muggy day and Rose thought she could hear thunder in the distance. She, Luna, Ginny, and Astoria all chose to sit together even though Astoria was the only one of the group who was wearing Slythrin colors in order to support her own house. When the Gryffindor team walked out Rose cheered as loud as she could, though it was drowned out by the other three fourths of the school who were all anxious to see Slythrin beaten. The Slythrins though weren't to be outdone thought because they also made their boo's and hisses heard too. The same happened in reverse when the Slythrin team walked out.

Rose watched anxiously as the two captains shook hands before mounting their brooms.

"On my whistle," she heard Madam Hooch announce. "Three… two… one…"

With a roar from the crowd to speed them upward, the fourteen players rose toward the leaden sky. Harry flew higher than any of them, making him easy to keep an eye on. Rose watched with wide eyes as the game started. She saw Malfoy say something to Harry that couldn't be heard before a heavy black Bludger came pelting toward him; he avoided it so narrowly that Roselyn feared for a moment it might take his head off.

George flew past him with his club ready to knock the Bludger back toward a Slytherin. However, when he gave the ball a powerful whack in the direction of Adrian Pucey it changed direction in midair and shot straight for Harry again

Harry dropped quickly to avoid it, and George managed to hit it hard toward Malfoy. Once again, the Bludger swerved like a boomerang and shot at Harry's head. Rose's heart leapt up into her throat as she leant over to Ginny and asked

"Is that supposed to happen." Ginny only shook her head as she watched Harry apprehensively. Rose turned her gaze back to Harry to see him put on a burst of speed and zoom toward the other end of the pitch. The Bludger whistling along behind him.

Fred was waiting for the Bludger at the other end. Harry ducked as Fred swung at the Bludger with all his might; the Bludger was knocked off course. Rose cheered, glad that the insane ball wasn't after him before squeaking; as though it was magnetically attracted to Harry, the Bludger pelted after him once more and Harry was forced to fly off at full speed.

It had started to rain; Rose felt heavy drops fall onto her face, and she began to feel even more apprehensive. Not only was a rogue Bludger after her brother but now it was raining.

"He won't be able to see!" She said anxiously as Lee Jordan, who was commentating, said, "Slytherin lead, sixty points to zero.'

The Slytherins' superior brooms were clearly doing their jobs, and meanwhile the mad Bludger was doing all it could to knock Harry out of the air. Fred and George were now flying so close to him on either side that it would be a miracle if Harry could see anything at all except their flailing arms and had no chance to look for the Snitch, let alone catch it.

Soon George was able to signal to Wood for a time out between trying to stop the Bludger from breaking Harry's nose

Wood had obviously got the message. Madam Hooch's whistle rang out and Harry, Fred, and George dived for the ground, still trying to avoid the mad Bludger. The teams all landed and Rose could see the Gryffindor team talking animatedly.

"They'll stop the game wont they? I mean, the Bludgers tampered with so they have to right?" She asked anxiously. Astoria shook her head,

"They'll only stop it if one of the captains call a forfeit. Neither team will do that though because it counts as an automatic loss for the team that forfits." Rose swallowed anxiously and watched as Madam Hooch started the game again.

The rain was falling more heavily now. On Madam Hooch's whistle, Harry kicked hard into the air and immediately the Bludger was after him again. Higher and higher Harry climbed; he looped and swooped, spiraled, zigzagged, and rolled. Rose clasped her hands together and prayed that Harry would be okay while trying to tune out the laughing from the crowd. She did not think there was anything funny with Harry trying to avoid the Bludger.

Soon she could see Malfoy talking to Harry again and wondered why her brother had stopped to stare at Malfoy. Rose winced when she saw and heard the Bludger make contact with Harry's arm. She could even hear his bone shatter.

The Bludger came pelting back for a second attack, this time zooming at his face — Harry swerved out of the way, before he dived for the shimmering, sneering face below him and Rose thought for a second that Harry was going to attack him before she saw what Harry was doing. He had seen the snitch. She held her breath in anticipation as Harry took his remaining hand off his broom and made a wild snatch; Roselyn saw his fingers close on the cold Snitch and cheered excitedly, but was now only gripping the broom with his legs, and there was a yell from the crowd below as he headed straight for the ground.

With a splattering thud he hit the mud and rolled off his broom. His arm was hanging at a very strange angle; Rose screamed and ran down to the field with Ginny, Luna, and Astoria close behind her.

When she finally came up to him she saw that he had fainted. But she also saw with growing dread that Lockheart was there, leaning over him. She ran up and kneeled next to him.

"Harry? Harry!" She called as she shook him slightly. He came around and immediately his gaze fell on Lockheart who was leaning over him with a smile on his face, though what he was smiling about Rose didn't know.

"Oh, no, not you," he moaned. Rose nodded in agreement.

"Doesn't know what he's saying," said Lockhart loudly to the anxious crowd of Gryffindors pressing around them. "Not to worry, Harry. I'm about to fix your arm."

"No!" said Harry. "I'll keep it like this, thanks…" He tried to sit up, but the pain was obviously terrible. Rose could hear a familiar clicking noise nearby.

"I don't want a photo of this, Colin," he said loudly.

"Lie back, Harry," said Lockhart soothingly. "It's a simple charm I've used countless times —"

"Why can't I just go to the hospital wing?" said Harry through clenched teeth. Rose nodded and tried to push Lockheart away but he stayed firm.

"He should really, Professor," said a muddy Wood, who couldn't help grinning even though his Seeker was injured. "Great capture, Harry, really spectacular, your best yet, I'd say —"

"Stand back," said Lockhart, who was rolling up his jade-green sleeves. Rose gasped, horrified, and tried to stop him, but Ron who had appeared shortly after she had, quickly grabbed her and pulled her out of the way.

"No — don't —" said Harry weakly, but Lockhart was twirling his wand and a second later had directed it straight at Harry's arm. Rose gasped and felt sick as she watched her brother's arm deflate and look more like rubber than an arm. The crowd gasped and Colin Creevey began clicking away madly.

"Ah," said Lockhart. "Yes. Well, that can sometimes happen. But the point is, the bones are no longer broken. That's the thing to bear in mind. So, Harry, just toddle up to the hospital wing — ah, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, Miss. Potter, would you escort him? — and Madam Pomfrey will be able to — er — tidy you up a bit."

Rose wiggled out of Rons grasp and helped Harry up, seeing as how he looked as though he was about to pass out again after having caught sight of his arm.

"Come on Harry, lets get you to Madam Pomfrey." Rose muttered, walking beside him up to the Hospital wing. On her way she turned to Ron with an unhappy look,

"Why didn't you let me stop him?" Ron looked at her in disbelief

"He wasn't stopping! Who knows what would have happened if he hit something random on you? Or if he misfired and hit Harry's head instead." Roselyn paused as the gruesome image of her brothers deflated head or her torso entered her head and she had to keep from being sick.

"Right, thanks then." She muttered. She waved goodbye to her friends before she and several others helped Harry to the Hospital wing.

Madam Pomfrey wasn't at all pleased.

"You should have come straight to me!" she raged, holding up the sad, limp remainder of what, half an hour before, had been a working arm. "I can mend bones in a second — but growing them back —"

"You will be able to, won't you?" said Harry desperately.

"I'll be able to, certainly, but it will be painful," said Madam Pomfrey grimly, throwing Harry a pair of pyjamas. "You'll have to stay the night…"

Hermione and Rose waited outside the curtain drawn around Harry's bed while Ron helped him into his pyjamas.

"If Harry had wanted deboning he would have asked."

"How can you stick up for Lockhart now, Hermione, eh?" Ron called through the curtain as he pulled

"Anyone can make a mistake," said Hermione. "And it doesn't hurt anymore, does it, Harry?"

"No," said Harry, getting into bed. "But it doesn't do anything else either."

As he swung himself onto the bed, his arm flapped pointlessly. Rose winced and glared at Hermione, she couldn't believe that she was still sticking up for the git.

Hermione, Roselyn, and Madam Pomfrey came around the curtain. Madam Pomfrey was holding a large bottle of something labeled Skele-Gro.

"You're in for a rough night," she said, pouring out a steaming beakerful and handing it to him. "Regrowing bones is a nasty business."

So was taking the Skele-Gro apparently, because Harry coughed and spluttered as he tried to choke it down. Still tut-tutting about dangerous sports and inept teachers, Madam Pomfrey retreated, leaving Rose, Ron and Hermione to help Harry gulp down some water. "We won, though," said Ron, a grin breaking across his face. "That was some catch you made. Malfoy's face… he looked ready to kill…"

"I want to know how he fixed that Bludger," said Hermione darkly. Rose frowned and kept from pointing out that a second year wouldn't be able to fix the Bludger but knew that she would be ignored.

"We can add that to the list of questions we'll ask him when we've taken the Polyjuice Potion," said Harry, sinking back onto his pillows. "I hope it tastes better than this stuff…"

"If it's got bits of Slytherins in it? You've got to be joking," said Ron.

The door of the hospital wing burst open at that moment. Filthy and soaking wet, the rest of the Gryffindor team had arrived to see Harry. "Unbelievable flying, Harry," said George. "I've just seen Marcus Flint yelling at Malfoy. Something about having the Snitch on top of his head and not noticing. Malfoy didn't seem too happy."

They had brought cakes, sweets, and bottles of pumpkin juice; they gathered around Harry's bed and were just getting started on what promised to be a good party when Madam Pomfrey came storming over, shouting, "This boy needs rest, he's got thirty-three bones to regrow! Out! OUT!" And Rose was forced to leave with the rest of the group. She half-heartedly said her goodbyes before heading to the Ravenclaw tower. When she got to her dorm, she assured Luna that Harry was alright before getting ready to do her homework and go to bed.

In the morning, as soon as Rose and Luna entered the Great hall, Ginny walked over to them, she was pale and jittery.

"Did you hear?" She asked them. The two girls looked at her bewildered.

"Hear what?" Rose asked. Ginny took a deep breath,

"Collin was attacked last night. Apparently he was trying to sneak down to see your brother Rose, and he was petrified!" Ginny was wringing her hands, looking so visibly upset that Rose began to wonder if she had become closer friends to Colin than she originally thought.

"I hope they catch the culprit soon." Luna said with a worried frown. "I sent a letter to daddy and he said he would try to figure out what kind of animal it was, but no luck so far." Rose and Ginny traded looks, both slightly skeptical of what her father would come up with but relieved that the adults cared none the less.

"Ginny, why don't you sit at our table with us? We can ask Astoria to join us and that way none of us will be alone." Rose suggested. Ginny nodded, looking slightly relieved as she joined the two at Ravenclaw table. To Rose's relief, Astoria immediately joined them once she walked into the Great Hall and saw them all sitting together with a seat open for her.

The four spent their breakfast in an uneasy silence as they thought about the newest attack.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter isn't mine. Unfortunately.**

 **A/N: thanks for all the Favorite/Follows guys! But reviews might be nice too.**

Chapter 11: The Dueling Club

The news about Colin had spread through the school like wildfire, causing the air to feel thick with rumor and suspicion, like a blanket that made everyone paranoid. The first years were all moving around the castle in groups, scared they would be attacked if they wandered alone.

Rose took to keeping a close eye on Astoria and Ginny since they were both in their own houses, she made sure that she and Luna walked them to where they needed to go or to a group from their own house so they weren't alone.

The Weasley twins tried to keep everyone's spirits up by making jokes and pulling more pranks than usual. But after the third time that they had jumped out from behind a statue covered in fur or boils, utterly frightening Ginny and the other girls, Rose had enough and went to complain to Percy, informing them that Ginny was only taking it worse and she was now having nightmares and was looking worse than normal. She watched as Percy turned an impressive shade of red and stalked out to find the twins, yelling that he was going to write their mother about their behavior and lecturing them on what was appropriate behavior for this situation.

Also making its rounds in the castle, under the noses of the teachers were a various amount of talismans, amulets, and other protective devices being sold to the students who fell for it. On one of the days that Rose spent with Neville, she stared at disbelief as he showed her everything that he bought, including a large, evil-smelling green onion, a pointed purple crystal, and a rotting newt tail.

"You know Neville, you don't have anything to worry about because you're a Pure-blood and really one of the last students to be attacked." She pointed out to him as she wrinkled her nose at the smell coming from the onion and newt tail.

"They went for Filch first," Neville said, his round face fearful. "And everyone knows I'm almost a Squib." Rose scoffed at this.

"You are not almost a squib Neville. You either are one, or you're not. You just haven't completely developed your magic. Once you become more confident you'll improve. It would probably also help once you get your own wand." She told him confidently, getting a thankful look from the boy.

"Thanks Rose, what do you want to work on today?" He asked her curiously as he sat down next to her. She hummed before shrugging.

"I don't know, why don't we go wallk around the lake, maybe I can try drawing you with a scenery instead of with a blank background." She suggested. "Or you can point out something or someone you want me to draw and I have to try it." She continued thoughtfully, she was getting better at drawing people and wanted to try drawing them while moving.

Neville nodded, "Alright, and there's no chance of us being attacked outside because all of the attacks have been inside." He added. Rose rolled her eyes but agreed.

"I still don't think we'll be attacked because of our background, but sounds good to me anyways." And the two packed their things up and walked out to sit by the lake, despite the cold weather and the snow, the two had fun. While they didn't actually end up doing any work or drawing, they did end up making snow angels and snow men. After a few hours, Luna, Astoria and Ginny joined them in trying to make the biggest snow man they could and ended up having Hagrid help them out which was a lot of fun and helped them all forget about what was happening around the castle at the moment.

When Professor McGonagall came around the Great Hall in the second week of December, Rose chose to sign up since she had no inclination to go back to the Dursleys for the Holidays. She was disappointed to find out that Astoria, Luna and Neville were all going to go home, but the fact that Ginny, her brothers, Rose's brother, and Hermione were staying made it worthwhile.

The last Herbology class Rose and Luna had before break, they shared with Ginny. Rose and Ginny spent most of the class figuring out what they were going to do over the break while Luna and Astoria were gone.

"What do you want to do first?" Rose asked as she sprinkled more mooncalf dung on the potted leaping toadstools. Ginny shrugged.

"I dunno, we need to have a snowball fight though." Rose nodded

"Alright, we should draw some too. We haven't had a chance to draw together since we got here." Ginny shrugged and nodded.

"Sure." Rose frowned and looked thoughtfully at Ginny.

"Hey, are you okay? You've been awfully pale and quiet all year." Ginny just stared determinedly down at the plant she was fertilizing.

"I'm fine. I just…" She trailed off as she looked troubled before shrugging. "I'm just nervous about this whole thing with the chamber and Colin, and I'm a little homesick." She said softly. Rose watched her closely, she got the feeling that Ginny was not telling her the whole truth but let it go. She didn't want to push her. While she knew Ginny was her friend, she didn't know how far she could push before Ginny got upset and pushed her away.

"Well, at least we don't have to put up with Lockheart here soon." That made Ginny smile, and they talked lightheartedly with Luna for the rest of the class. After the class was over the group was walking into the entrance hall where they saw a small group of people gathered around the notice board. Among the group was Astoria who noticed they came in and waved them over.

"Hey you three, look here, a Dueling Club is starting up and the first meeting is tonight. You guys want to go?" She asked them when they finally got to her. The three girls gave each other excited looks at the thought.

"Ohh, maybe we'll actually learn something!" Rose said, excited. "I hear that Professor Flitwick was a dueling champion when he was young so I bet he could do it. Even Professor Snape would be a good teacher, after all, he wanted the DADA position for forever. Or even the Headmaster, after all, he did defeat Grindiwald." Astoria rolled her eyes, but smiled at her enthusiasm.

"I'll never understand why you're so eager to learn. But yes, I'm looking forward to learning how to duel, aside from even protecting myself from the monster."

"Who care's about the monster? I just wanna learn something useful for defense. Lets go!" Rose said laughing, so at eight o'clock that evening they hurried back to the Great Hall. The long dining tables had vanished and a golden stage had appeared along one wall, lit by thousands of candles floating overhead. The ceiling was velvety black once more and most of the school seemed to be packed beneath it, all carrying their wands and looking excited.

Rose looked around as she bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet. Luna, stood to her left with her signature dreamy expression while Astoria stood to her right with a calm facade on her face, though Rose could tell by her bright eyes that she was excited. Rose looked around and saw Ginny standing over by some other Gryffindor girls and they caught each others gaze and smiled at each other.

"Okay, who is the teacher." Rose muttered under her breath. She looked around before groaning, "Oh noooo, not him!" She muttered.

Gilderoy Lockhart was walking onto the stage, resplendent in robes of deep plum and accompanied by none other than Snape, wearing his usual black.

"At least Professor Snape is here, so we might learn something." Astoria whispered to the other two girls. Even Luna looked skeptical about that, eyeing the two professors like they were going to turn rabid and leap out to eat everyone at any moment.

Lockhart waved an arm for silence and called "Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent! Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions — for full details, see my published works. Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," said Lockhart, flashing a wide smile. "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry — you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

"Wouldn't it be good if Professor Snape just demolished Lockheart?" Rose muttered as she watched Snape's upper lip curl. Roselyn wondered why Lockhart was still smiling; if Snape had been looking at her like that she definitely wouldn't be so eager to be facing him.

Lockhart and Snape turned to face each other and bowed; at least, Lockhart did, with much twirling of his hands, whereas Snape jerked his head irritably. Then they raised their wands like swords in front of them.

"As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position," Lockhart told the silent crowd. "On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course."

"Yeah right." Astoria scoffed as everyone watched Snape bare his teeth in a malicious grin.

"One — two — three —"

Both of them swung their wands above their heads and pointed them at their opponent; Snape cried: "Expelliarmus!" There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet: He flew backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, and slid down it to sprawl on the floor.

Rosesilently cheered but she was quite disappointed to see Lockhart was getting unsteadily to his feet. His hat had fallen off and his wavy hair was standing on end.

"Well, there you have it!" he said, tottering back onto the platform. "That was a Disarming Charm — as you see, I've lost my wand — ah, thank you, Miss Brown — yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy — however, I felt it would be instructive to let them see…"

Snape was looking murderous. Possibly Lockhart had noticed, because he said, "Enough demonstrating! I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me —"

They moved through the crowd, matching up partners.

Rose was pleased when Professor Snape let her and Astoria stay paired up while Luna was paired with Callie Trent, much to the later girls displeasure.

"Face your partners!" called Lockhart, back on the platform. "And bow!"

Rose and Astoria bowed to each other while pointing their wands at each other.

"Wands at the ready!" shouted Lockhart. "When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents — only to disarm them — we don't want any accidents — one… two… three —"

"Expelliarmus!" The two girls yelled, Rose dodged Astoria's spell and was pleased to see that her own spell hit, causing Astoria's wand to jump out of her hand towards Roselyn. Roselyn handed the other girl her spell and looked around. All around them spells were flying around haphazardly.

"Stop! Stop!" screamed Lockhart, but in the end, Snape took charge. "Finite Incantatem!" he shouted; Harry's feet stopped dancing, Malfoy stopped laughing, and they were able to look up.

A haze of greenish smoke was hovering over the scene. Both Neville and Justin were lying on the floor, panting; Ron was holding up an ashen-faced Seamus, apologizing for whatever his broken wand had done; but Hermione and Millicent Bulstrode were still moving; Millicent had Hermione in a headlock and Hermione was whimpering in pain; both their wands lay forgotten on the floor.

After a few moments, Harry and another second year Ravenclaw that Rose recognized as Terry Boot managed to pry the two brawling girls off each other.

"Dear, dear," said Lockhart, skittering through the crowd, looking at the aftermath of the duels. "Up you go, Macmillan…"

"Careful there, Miss Fawcett… Pinch it hard, it'll stop bleeding in a second,"

"I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells," said Lockhart, standing flustered in the midst of the hall. He glanced at Professor Snape, whose black eyes glinted, and looked quickly away. "Let's have a volunteer pair — Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you —"

"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," said Professor Snape, gliding over like a large and malevolent bat. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We'll be sending what's left of Finch-Fletchley up to the hospital wing in a matchbox." Neville's round, pink face went pinker. Roselyn pursed her lips together and glared at him. She did not like that comment about her friend, especially not in front of so many students.

"How about Malfoy and Potter?" said Professor Snape with a twisted smile. Roselyn closed her eyes, she just knew this was a bad idea, her thought was proved correct when Lockhart said,

"Excellent idea!" gesturing Harry and Malfoy into the middle of the hall as the crowd backed away to give them room.

"Now, Harry," said Lockhart. "When Draco points his wand at you, you do this."

He raised his own wand, attempted a complicated sort of wiggling action, and dropped it. Snape smirked as Lockhart quickly picked it up, saying, "Whoops— my wand is a little overexcited—"

Snape moved closer to Malfoy, bent down, and whispered something in his ear. Malfoy smirked, too. Amelia saw Harry look up nervously at Lockhart and say, "Professor, could you show me that blocking thing again?"

Lockhart cuffed Harry merrily on the shoulder. "Just do what I did, Harry!"

"What, drop my wand?" Rose took a deep breath and held it as she watched wide eyed.

"Three — two — one — go!" he shouted.

Malfoy raised his wand quickly and bellowed, "Serpensortia!"

The end of his wand exploded. Roselyn watched, aghast, as a long black snake shot out of it, fell heavily onto the floor between the two boys, and raised itself, ready to strike. There were screams as the crowd backed swiftly away, clearing the floor. Astoria and Luna were forced to grab ahold of Rose to keep her from bolting right then and even then, she whimpered wanting to close her eyes but not wanting to miss anything.

"Don't move, Potter," said Snape lazily, clearly enjoying the sight of Harry standing motionless, eye to eye with the angry snake. "I'll get rid of it…"

"Allow me!" shouted Lockhart.

He brandished his wand at the snake and there was a loud bang; the snake, instead of vanishing, flew ten feet into the air and fell back to the floor with a loud smack. Enraged, hissing furiously, it slithered straight toward Justin Finch-Fletchley and raised itself again, fangs exposed, poised to strike.

"Harry!" Rose called anxiously, she knew that he had talked to the snake in the zoo the previous year and hoped he would do so again. Roselyn had to fight the sudden urge to run screaming hysterically out of the hall, watching as Harry, as though in a slight trance walked towards the snake and shouted in some sort of hiss. Suddenly the snake slumped to the floor, docile as a thick, black garden hose, its eyes now on Harry. Rose sighed in a little relief as she knew the snake wouldn't attack anyone now, she didn't know what Harry said but she was glad for it.

When Harry looked up to Justin, the other boy shouted, "What do you think you're playing at?" and before Harry could say anything, Justin had turned and stormed out of the hall.

Snape stepped forward, waved his wand, and the snake vanished in a small puff of black smoke. Snape, too, was looking at Harry in an unexpected way: It was a shrewd and calculating look, and Rose didn't like it. She was also aware of an ominous muttering all around the walls. She saw Ron and Hermione go up and tug on his shirt and pull him out of the Great Hall.

As they went through the doors, the people on either side drew away as though they were frightened of catching something. Rosel didn't have a clue what was going on, she turned to Astoria with a frown on her face.

"Whats wrong? Why is everyone acting so weird?" several people turned to look at her funny, seeming to realize she was Harrys sister and several backed away from her nervously. Lockhart cleared his throat and said

"I think that will conclude todays lesson. Off to bed." The great hall emptied out, but Roselyn continued to stand there, looking at her friends, for Luna and Ginny had come over to join the other two.

"Harry's a Parselmouth." Astoria stated. Rose blinked in confusion.

"A what? Does that mean talk to snakes?" She asked. The four girls nodded

"Yeah, it's really rare and Salazar Slytherin was famous for it. Its why our house symbol is a serpent." Astoria explained. Rose swallowed and looked between the three, Luna was the only one who didn't look grave. Ginny, who was looking pale again, continued for Astoria.

" Now everyone's going to think you two are his great-great-grandchildren, which means you're the heir." Rose swallowed and looked between them. Suddenly she hopped that Mrs. Olgery wrote back with news about her family tree soon. She could already practically hear the rumors flying from this.

"I see. Let's go to bed." She said hastily changing the topic. Astoria and Ginny both gave her looks that she was unable to decipher at the moment before going off their separate ways.

Rose and Luna made their way up to their dorm in silence. Just before going to up to bed, Luna turned to her and said,

"I don't believe either you or Harry is Slytherin's Heir. Just because someone has an ability, it doesn't determine that they're good or bad. It's how they choose to use it that matters."." Before turning and going up to bed, leaving Rose to stare after her.

By the next morning it had started blizzarding and all outside classes had been cancelled, but the Blizzard had made it hard to concentrate on classes because everyone just wanted to sit by a fire to keep warm.

Luckily, Rose's other classes went quickly so that she and Luna were able to spend the day, curled up by the fire, playing wizards chess. It was shortly after they started up their third game that Artemis flew through the window with an official looking letter. Roselyn started and stared at her owl, that was now sitting on the table, closest to the fire to warm up from being out in the snow. Rose quickly grabbed the letter and stroked her owl gently.

"Thanks Artemis. You're a good bird. Why don't you go up to the owlery and stay warm, alright?" Artemis let out a soft hoot, giving her hand a light peck before flying out again.

"What is it?" Luna asked. Rose looked down to read it.

Dear Miss Potter,

I'm pleased to inform you that we would be more than happy to trace your family's lineage. However, it will take us several weeks to do so. In the meantime, I would suggest you look into any books about the Ancient houses

Sincerely,

Gena Olgery

Head of the Department of Geneology

Rose grinned and looked up to Luna

"Excellent. I'm going to go see if they have any books on this, do you want to come with me?" Luna stared at her thoughtfully for a moment before saying

"No, I think I shall go visit the house elves and drink some hot chocolate. It will be nice to visit with them before I go home." Rose nodded; she knew that Luna was very taken with the Kitchen's house elves.

"Then I'll be on my way." And the two girls parted ways. On her way to the library however she spotted Ginny curled up in a corner, her shoulders shaking, while crying. Rose paused, alarmed, before going over to her and crouching down.

"Ginny?" She asked quietly, Ginny gave a start, but continued to cry into her arms. "What's wrong Gin?" She tried again as she wrapped her arms around Ginny. Ginny just shook her head and continued to cry. After a few moments Ginny rubbed her eyes and sat up, forcing Rose to let go of her.

"I'm sorry Rose." She said quietly. Rose furrowed her eyebrows.

"For what?" Ginny shrugged and continued to sniffle. Rose pulled out one of her kerchiefs and handed it to her.

"Here, wipe your nose." Ginny took it with a quiet 'thanks' and wiped her tears away before wiping her nose and crinkling the kerchief in her fist. "Now, what's wrong? Do I need to hex someone for you?" Ginny laughed lightly and shook her head.

"No! you don't need to hex anyone. I just…" She trailed off, looking uncertain before shrugging again. "Don't worry about it Rose." Rose studied her for a moment before saying,

"I'm worried about you Ginny, you've been real pale lately and you haven't been like yourself. I know you said your homesick, but I think maybe that's not it, especially since most of your family is here." Ginny frowned and her eyes blazed for a moment.

"What do you care? You've been hanging out with Astoria and Luna more than me and off doing who know's what with Neville!" Rose's eyes widened in surprise and she watched as Ginny closed her eyes and breathed in and held it before releasing her breath and calming down.

"I'm sorry Gin. Neville and I are only doing homework and he lets me practice drawing him so I can get better, and I know I hang out with the other two a lot but, you've been pulling away from us for a while. You're really not acting like yourself. I'm sorry if you feel like I've been neglecting you but I haven't been trying." Ginny looked sullen and upset again.

"I'm sorry Rose, I didn't mean to snap at you, I just, I haven't been feeling quite right lately." Rose nodded slowly, thinking about it.

"It's alright." They were both silent for a few moments before Rose stood up and held out a hand to help Ginny up. "How about you come with me to the library to find these two books I'm looking for. Mrs. Olgry from the Genealogy department contacted me and suggested them while I wait for them to look up some of my family tree." Ginny hesitated before taking her hand.

"Uh, sure, it's better than sitting here, that's for sure." Rose smiled hesitantly at her before leading the way to the library. Hopefully this would take both of their minds off of their troubles for a while.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: Don't own Rowling's work.**

Chapter 12: Christmas Time

As the two girls headed off to the library, Rose noticed that Neville was running over to them. She blinked and smiled at the older boy.

"Hey Neville! Whats up?" She asked. Ginny looked over to him, looking apprehensive. Rose looked at her strangely before looking closer at Neville's face. She herself started to feel apprehensive when she noticed that he was looking slightly afraid and panicked.

"Rose! Ginny! Have you heard?" He asked. Rose looked bewildered at him before shaking her head,

"Heard what?" She asked curiously. Neville grimaced

"There's been another attack, a double attack this time, on Justin Finch-Fletchly and Nearly Headless Nick! Not only that but Harry was at the crime scene and Professor McGonagall took him to see the Headmaster." Rose's eyes widened in horror as Ginny sucked in a gasp,

"But, what would be able to harm a ghost?" Ginny asked. Rose swallowed heavily

"Harry's not being blamed for it is he?" She asked desperately. Neville hesitated before shrugging

"I don't know. Of course people are going to say he's doing it, but I don't know if the teachers believe it." Rose felt like panicking, she didn't want her brother to be expelled. She turned to Ginny

"I gotta go see him. We can go to the library later okay?" she asked quickly, she didn't even wait for Ginny to answer before she turned and ran off down the hallway to where she knew the Headmasters office was. She had accidently run across it when she, Astoria, Luna, and Ginny had been exploring at the beginning of the year and was now glad that she had. She skidded to a halt in front of the gargoyle's and stared at it. She bit her lip as she tried to think of what the password might be. Luckily, she didn't have to stand their thinking for long because the gargoyles leapt aside to revile the stairs and door which, to her surprise, Hagrid was standing there, looking sheepish with a dead rooster in his hand, flung over his shoulder. He looked startled when he saw Rose standing there.

"lil' Rosie! Wha-?" He didn't get to finish as Rose launched into her own questions

"Is Harry okay? Is he going to be expelled? Does Professor Dumbledore suspect him?" when she stopped, Hagrid had to smile sympathetically at her.

"So you heard huh? Don't worry, Dumbledore doesn't think Harry did it. He's just speaking with him right now before he lets him go." Rose closed her eyes and took a deep breath in relief.

"Oh, good." She made to turn and leave, now that she knew Harry wasn't in trouble when she paused and turned back to Hagrid. "Hagrid, why are you carrying a dead rooster around?" She asked. Hagrid looked to the rooster in his hand in surprise, seeming to have forgotten what he had been holding before answering.

"Oh, well, someone's been murdering the school roosters. I suspect it to be blood suckin' bugbears or foxes are getting them. I've come up to see if the headmaster can do anything." Rose nodded before flashing a smile and moving away.

"I see, well, hope you have a good rest of your day Hagrid. I'll see you later okay?" Hagrid nodded and Rose turned and walked away. She frowned as she wondered to herself what could be attacking the students and how they were petrifying them. Not to mention how they petrified a ghost.

The double attack on Justin and Nearly Headless Nick turned what had hitherto been nervousness into real panic.

Curiously, it was Nearly Headless Nick's fate that seemed to worry people most. What could possibly do that to a ghost? people asked each other; what terrible power could harm someone who was already dead?

There was almost a stampede to book seats on the Hogwarts Express so that students could go home for Christmas.

Rose went from being one of about twelve other Ravenclaws staying over the Holidays to the only one, which made her a touch nervous so she went grabbed Ginny and the two of them went to Professor Flitwick.

"Professor?" Rose called out as she knocked on his office door.

"Come in, come in!" He called out. Rose and Ginny opened his door and blinked when they saw him busy decorating his office to look festive.

"Wow, looks nice Professor!" Ginny said as they watched him make a complicated looking orb that he magically hung up on the little tree in his office. After he was finished he turned to smile at the girls.

"Why thank you Miss Weasley. How can I help you girls?" He asked curiously as he sat down at his desk, motioning for them to also take a seat.

"Well sir, I was wondering if I can stay in Gryffindor tower over the break with Ginny and my brother. I would have asked sooner, but I didn't mind being in Ravenclaw tower up until now because I wasn't going to be the only one staying up there. But now that the others have all signed up to go home, I'd rather stay somewhere where others are going to be." Rose explained. Professor Flitwick nodded thoughtfully as he leaned forward to look at the two.

"I understand and agree with your reasoning Miss. Potter, but we should also ask Professor McGonagall if that's alright with her. I'm sure she'll also agree that it's a good idea, though you must remember that this will be a onetime thing because of the circumstances currently happening. I don't like the idea of you being alone in the tower either." He stood up and beckoned the two girls to follow him. "Are any of your roommates staying Miss. Weasley?" He asked curiously.

Ginny shook her head, "No sir, it's just going to be me, my brothers, Harry and Hermione in the tower." She answered. Professor Flitwick nodded thoughtfully before stopping at Professor McGonagalls Office and knocking. They waited a moment before Professor McGonagall called for them to come in. When they did, Rose noted that while she was working on what looked like homework, her room was also brightly decorated and felt very festive. She eyed the group, a slight frown on her face as she saw who was there.

"Good Afternoon Filius, girls." She said, putting her work off to the side.

"Afternoon Minerva. Miss Potter came to me with a reasonable request for her sleeping arrangements for the Holidays. I gave her my permission, but told her and Miss. Weasley they had to ask you as well." Professor Flitwick said before motioning for Rose to speak up.

She stepped forward, wringing her hands nervously. "Uh, well you see Professor, Ginny and I were wondering if I could stay with her in Gryfindor Tower for the holidays. I would have been fine up in Ravenclaw tower but since the lattest attack, everyone else who was going to stay are all going home now and I'll be the only one in the tower. That would be fine too if I knew that I wouldn't be attacked up their on my own cause if I'm attacked it might be a bit before anyone notices and that makes me a bit nervous." She stammered out quickly. Professor McGonagall looked at the two girls before glancing to Professor Flitwick then nodding thoughtfully.

"I see, it's certainly a good request as well as a reasonable reason for wanting to stay in the other tower. I see no problem with it. We'll give you the password after everyone leaves for the trains then we can just switch it again once the holidays are over again. I'm sure we can arrange for the house elves to bring you things over, unless you would like to just pack a small bag?" she asked Rose, who thought about it for a moment.

"I can just get a small bag of clothes to bring over." She finally said before smiling at both of the Professors gratefully, "Thanks for this!" She said, excitedly turning to Ginny who was also smiling excitedly.

"This will be great! And we can open presents together!" the two Professors laughed and bid the girls goodbye.

"Lets go tell my brother!" Rose told Ginny excitedly. Ginny just blushed at the thought and nodded.

They wondered around for a bit before they came across the trio standing in front of Fred and George who looked like they had just way laid them.

George was pretending to ward Harry off with a huge clove of garlic while Fred spoke loudly.

"So, oh illustrious heir of Slythrin, who do you plan on attacking next?" they snickered. Rose looked to see that Harry and Ron both looked highly amused and Hermione looked on in disapproval.

"Oh don't!" Ginny wailed, clutching her face. "It's not funny!" She said to the baffled twins.

"Its just a joke Ginny!" George told her, slightly alarmed at her reaction.

"Yeah, Harry know's we're just teasing him, don't you Harry?" Fred added, turning to Harry to double check.

"I don't mind Ginny, I think it's great they think me being the Heir of Slythrin is a silly idea." Harry also tried to reassure her, but Ginny just turned bright red and ran off. Rose made to grab her,

"Ginny! Wait!" She called before turning back to her brother. "Oh, before I go, we got permission from Professor Flitwick and Professor Mcgonagall for me to stay with you all in Gryfindor tower over the Holidays so I'm not by myself in Ravenclaw Tower." She told them. Harry nodded, letting out a breath,

"Good, I was kind of worried about you staying by yourself up there." He said.

"I gotta go find Ginny now. Bye!" Rose said before running after Ginny. Thankfully she had only gone around the corner and to the end of the corridor, where she was paceing anxiously.

"What's wrong Ginny? Fred and George really are just trying to show everyone how silly they're being in blaming Harry." Rose asked her. Ginny bit her lip and turned to her.

"I know. But asking who's going to be attacked next is too much! What about Colin? And Justin and Nick? And Mrs. Noris! Who's going to be attacked next? And what if they aren't petrified? What if they-they" She looked around before lowering her voice to a whisper, "Die?"

Rose bit her lip in unease, realizing the validity of the statement. "I understand, how about we tell the twins that? I bet they'd stop if you told them why it bothers you. They really are only trying to help Harry." She said.

Ginny nodded slowly, "I know that, and it's surprisenly nice of them to do that. I just don't like how theyre doing it." She said. Rose understood and let the subject drop.

Soon enough, everyone was gone and the castle seemed to be very empty. Ginny and Rose spent the first few days finishing their homework so they could have fun the rest of the Holidays. They spent time visiting Hagrid, trying to ice skate on the lake, they went to various areas of the castle to draw, played wizard chess, exploding snap, gobstones and other games with their brothers and Hermione when they could, and played out in the snow.

Christmas morning dawned, cold and white. Rose, who had been sleeping in Lavender Browns bed for the break, woke up extremely early. She looked over to Hermione and Ginny, who was sleeping in Pavarti Patel's bed, and saw that they were both sleeping. She grinned mischievously before getting up and taking a running leap onto Hermione's bed

"Wake up! Its Christmas!" she yelled in her ear before diving off the bed to doge Hermione's arm. She turned to Ginny and did the same thing to her.

"Merry Christmas!" she yelled. Ginny was so startled that she sat up quickly

"Wha-? What's going on?" She asked frantically as she looked around, before calming down when she saw it was only Rose. "Oh, it's only you." She then laid back down before sitting up again quickly and looking for her presents

"Awsome! Presents!" She said. The girls looked expectantly over to Hermione who only shrugged, gathered her presents up before heading out to go see Ron and Harry. Ginny and Rose quickly made their way through their presents.

Rose had received a Weasley sweater and fudge from Mrs. Weasley, a wizard's chess set from Luna, a very pretty silver necklace with a sapphire heart locket from Astoria, a book of curses from Hermione, a small blue diary from Ginny, and art pencils from Harry. Overall she was extremely pleased with the turnout of her presents.

After everyone had opened their presents and eaten breakfast, Rose and Ginny dragged the rest of the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione out to the grounds to have a massive snowball fight.

"Okay, so it should be the Weasleys, minus Ron against the rest of us! That way the teams are even." Hermione said, obviously wanting everything to be fair, though no one objected.

"Perfect!" The twins said in unison.

"We'll get a –"

"Ten minute period –"

"To think of a strategy –"

"And make our forts." Fred and George said, pulling off the freaky twin thing.

"No magic!" Rose called to the other team as they walked away and started to build the forts.

"Okay, so should it be a free for all or should we come up with a plan?" Ron asked as he helped Rose create a pile of snow balls while Hermione and Harry built the walls of the fort.

"One of us should stay in the fort and keep our pile of snow balls stocked up, keep our walls up and to ambush anyone that comes around, two of us should be attacking everyone from between the two forts and one of us should ambush the other fort!" Rose said excitedly. The trio looked at her in amusement.

"Your not excited at all about this are you?" Harry teased her. Rose flushed and looked down at her snowball.

"I just wanna have fun." She mumbled. The other three laughed.

"I was just teasing Rosie. That sounds good. How about you hold the fort, Ron and Hermione attack and I'll ambush okay?" He asked. Rose perked up and nodded excitedly.

"Okay! It's been ten minutes so lets get to it!" She said. The other three nodded and ran out, looking around so that they weren't snuck up on. Rose quickly grabbed several snowballs and peaked over the walls of her teams fort and started looking for the other red heads. She pretty quickly found Ginny who was trying to sneak over to where she was and started to throw the snowballs at her. Ginny gave a startled scream when one hit her on her shoulder, getting her face and neck when it splattered. Rose laughed and ducked when Ginny started to through some snow back at her, thus the epic fight started.

Rose was having a lot of fun catching the Weasley's with snowballs up until Fred managed to sneak past her whole team and bombarded her with snow.

"Ack! Mayday! Mayday! Help!" Rose tried to yell to her team mates while laughing hysterically and trying to hit Fred back. In the end Fred ended up tackling her, knocking down one of the walls on top of them and tickling her instead. This was the start of her teams downfall, because as soon as she was practically disabled from laughing, Hermione was ambushed by Ginny when her attention had been diverted by the call from help. Then when Ron and Harry turned to help her, George and Percy launched their attack and pretty soon Rose's whole team was soaked in snow.

It was only when Ron's stomach started growling, signaling meal time, that the group started to trudge in to get warmed up and head to Dinner.

The Great Hall looked magnificent. Not only were there a dozen frost-covered Christmas trees and thick streamers of holly and mistletoe crisscrossing the ceiling, but enchanted snow was falling, warm and dry, from the ceiling. Dumbledore led them in a few of his favorite carols, Hagrid booming more and more loudly with every goblet of eggnog he consumed. Percy, who hadn't noticed that Fred had bewitched his prefect badge so that it now read "Pinhead," kept asking them all what they were sniggering at. Rose sat at the Gryfindor table with Ginny, trying to ignore when Hermione started to usher Harry and Ron out of the Hall. She knew that they were doing the potion tonight but she had a bad feeling about the whole thing. She had faith that Hermione made it correctly, or as close to as possible, but there could still be accidents. However, she wanted to still have fun so she distracted herself by talking and messing around with Ginny.

After they were done eating, Ginny turned to Rose and asked

"Do you want to play wizards chess?"

"Sure, I'm still not the best, but let's go." Rose said. Ginny shrugged and grabbed her new chess set she had gotten from a wizard cracker and led the way up to Gryffindor.

It took a bit of time, but after two games, Rose was pretty sure she could finally manage to win a game. When she looked at the time, she was surprised to see that almost two hours had passed since she had seen her brother and his friends leave the Great Hall.

"I'm going to go see what Harry's up to before bed, do you want to come with me?" She asked Ginny. Ginny took a moment to think about it before finally shaking her head.

"No thanks. I think I'll write in my diary some then go to bed." She said as she started to pack her chess set up. Rose nodded and made her way out the portrait,

"Alright then. Good night." She said.

"Good night." Ginny replied before heading up to her dorm.

Rose swiftly made her way up to the bathroom. However, just as she reached the bathroom, Ron and Harry were coming out, coaxing Hermione out.

Suddenly she was apprehensive again,

"What happened? Did something go wrong?" The two boys spun around in surprise before looking uncertainly back into the bathroom where Hermione was,

"Uhh, ya, Hermione accidently used a cat hair, instead of Milicent's hair."

"Oh no! Hermione! We have to get you to the hospital wing!" Rose said, looking at them in horror.

"What will I do? What will I say?" She wailed as she stepped out of the bathroom. Rose had to force herself from cringing back from her. Her face was covered in black fur. Her eyes had turned yellow and there were long, pointed ears poking through her hair.

"It's okay, Hermione," said Harry quickly. "We'll take you up to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey never asks too many questions.."

It took a long time to persuade Hermione to leave the bathroom. Especially with Moaning Myrtle making mean comments. When they finally made it to the Hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey gave a start when she saw Hermione,

"What in Merlins name happened to you?" She asked in surprise as she ushered her onto a bed.

"They were practicing some transfiguration spells and one sorta went awry and hit Hermione instead." Rose quickly explained, trying to come up with a reasonable lie before her brother tried to come up with a worse one. The nurse pursed her lips but nodded and started to get together some potions.

"Well, this won't be easy to fix my dear, I'm afraid you're going to be in here for some time." She told Hermione,

"What about classes?" Hermione practically wailed. Rose patted the girls arm comfortingly as Harry and Ron shifted.

"Don't worry, I'll bring you all your homework okay?" She said. Hermione nodded.

"Out! All of you, this girl needs to take her potions and sleep" Madam Pomfrey said, shooing the three out.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: Still don't own Harry Potter.**

Chapter 13

Hermione remained in the hospital wing for several weeks.

There was a flurry of rumor about her disappearance when the rest of the school arrived back from their Christmas holidays, because of course everyone thought that she had been attacked.

So many students filed past the hospital wing trying to catch a glimpse of her that Madam Pomfrey took out her curtains again and placed them around Hermione's bed, to spare her the shame of being seen with a furry face.

Rose would go visit her a few times every week to make sure she was doing okay and to take her finished homework so that they were sure that the teachers received it.

Every once and a while, Roselyn would show up at the same time as Harry and Ron and would ask what had happened in their interrogation of Malfoy.

"I don't suppose you've got any new leads?" she asked one day in a whisper, so that Madam Pomfrey couldn't hear her.

"Nothing," said Harry gloomily.

"I was so sure it was Malfoy," said Ron, for about the hundredth time, causing Rose to roll her eyes.

"What's that?" asked Harry, pointing to something gold sticking out from under Hermione's pillow.

"Just a get well card," said Hermione hastily, trying to poke it out of sight, but Ron was too quick for her. He pulled it out, flicked it open, and read aloud:

"To Miss Granger, wishing you a speedy recovery, from your concerned teacher, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and fivetimewinner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award."

Ron and Rose looked up at Hermione, disgusted.

"You sleep with this under your pillow?" He asked, but Hermione was spared answering by Madam Pomfrey sweeping over with her evening dose of medicine.

Rose sighed and said goodbye to everyone before heading off to the library. To her surprise, halfway there she heard someone calling her,

"Rose! Roselyn wait!" she turned and was astonished to see Ginny walking over to her with a bounce in her step. Rose smiled in delight, happy to see that the other girl was being happy for once.

"Hello Ginny. What has you in such a good mood?" she asked. Ginny just shrugged and smiled at her.

"Its just a good day. Wanna go to Hagrids with me?" she asked. Rose nodded eagerly

"Sure! I've been meaning to go visit him here soon. We should ask if we can count his coat pockets, I'm curious to know how many he has." Ginny nodded

"Okay. Lets go." Together they walked down to Hagrids, chatting happily about their classes and other things. When they got there they knocked.

"hullo?" Hagrid said as he opened the door, he smiled when he saw them, "Oh Ginny! Rosie, come on in." he said, standing aside so they could walk in. "How have you two been?" Rose smiled

"We've been good. We've come to say hi and see if we couldn't count the pockets in your coat." Hagrid laughed and grabbed his coat, placing it on the table.

"you're more than welcome to count the pockets, I've found that I can't remember how many I have anymore." He watched in amusement as Rose and Ginny gave each other gleeful smiles and start to count. He turned to Ginny and asked

"You feeling better Ginny? You're looking more perked up." Ginny smiled and nodded.

"Ya, I'm doing much better. Thanks for asking Hagrid." Hagrid nodded and moved to put the tea kettle on.

"you two wan' some tea?" the girls both nodded as they continued to count. The three of them then continued to spend the rest of the afternoon talking and counting pockets and telling stories until the girls had to go back inside.

"See you tomorrow Gin." Rose called to Ginny as the two parted ways so they could each head off to their respective common rooms.

The sun had now begun to shine weakly on Hogwarts again. Inside the castle, the mood had grown more hopeful. There had been no more attacks since those on Justin and Nearly Headless Nick, and Madam Pomfrey was pleased to report that the Mandrakes were becoming moody and secretive, meaning that they were fast leaving childhood.

"I bet they're just waiting to repot the Mandrakes." Neville explained to Rose during one of their study sessions. She looked at him impatiently,

"But how long will that be? It's taking forever." She whined slightly. Neville just smiled and shrugged.

"As soon as their acne clears up, but it all depends on how long that will take." He said before starting to quiz her on some more plants.

They didn't get very far when they heard some giggling girls sit down behind them. Neville and Rose shared identical exasperated and irritated looks but quieted down when they heard one of the girls mention Professor Lockheart.

"Did you hear? Professor Lockheart is going to do something special for the school to help with moral. Now that all these attacks seem to have stopped." Said one girl. The other four giggled,

"Yeah, I bet the Professor did something to make the attacks stop. He's sooo dreamy and talented." One of the others said, causing all four to sigh. Rose frowned at the group before turning to Neville.

"I wonder what he has planned? I don't trust anything that he thinks up." She muttered to Neville so the girls didn't hear her. He just nodded in agreement.

"I know. You want to keep trying to work or should we do this another day?" He asked when the girls started giggling loudly again. Rose scowled at them in irritation before putting her things away.

"Might as well do it another day, I cant think with them giggling like that." She muttered. Neville smiled sympathetically at her before starting to put his own things away.

Lockhart's idea of a morale-booster became clear to everyone at breakfast time on February fourteenth. Rose had been walking with Luna to Breakfast and when they opened the doors, they both paused thinking that they'd walked through the wrong doors.

The walls were all covered with large, lurid pink flowers. Worse still, heart-shaped confetti was falling from the pale blue ceiling.

The two of them walked over to the Ravenclaw table and Rose leaned over to ask Terry Boot, who was seated next to her, "What's going on?"

Terry threw Lockheart a disgusted look before turning to Rose "Apparently Lockheart got permission from Dumbledore to celebrate Valentine's day." Rose looked up to see Lockhart, wearing lurid pink robes to match the decorations, was waving for silence. The teachers on either side of him were looking stony-faced. From where she sat, Rose could see a muscle going in Professor McGonagall's cheek. Snape looked as though someone had just fed him a large beaker of Skele-Gro, not that Rose blamed him, she would too if she had to be that close to Lockhart.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" Lockhart shouted. "And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all — and it doesn't end here!" Lockhart clapped his hands and through the doors to the entrance hall marched a dozen surly-looking dwarfs.

Not just any dwarfs, however. Lockhart had them all wearing golden wings and carrying harps. Rose looked at them in a sort of horrified awe. She couldn't believe they had been forced to do this.

"My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" beamed Lockhart. "They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion! And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"

Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands. Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison. Rose groaned as she caught up to Ginny who was looking thoughtful.

"Ginny!" Ginny turned to see her coming and smiled

"Oh, hey Rose. How are you." Rose scowled,

"I could be better. I wish Lockheart didn't do this. It's going to be so embarrassing for people." Ginny shrugged and with a small blush said

"I dunno Rose, I think it would be kinda romantic." Rose rolled her eyes.

"Whatever you say Gin. I better get to class. See you!" She said waving before heading off to class.

All day long, the dwarfs kept barging into their classes to deliver valentines, to the annoyance of the teachers, and it was in Herbology that a dwarf came up to her. She blushed under her classmates stares and professor Sprouts frown.

"Got a message for you miss. Potter." The dwarf cleared his throat then said, "Roses are red, violets are blue, candy is sweet, and so are you. From your admirer." The girls in the class all coo'd, causing Rose to sink down in her chair, luckily Professor Sprout took pity on her and brought the classes attention back to her so they could finish off their class.

After classes, Rose was glad to escape to the library where she was surprised to find Neville in their usual spot doing homework.

"Neville? What are you doing here?" she asked. Neville looked up, surprised, but when he saw it was her, he smiled

"Hi Rose. I'm just doing homework and trying to stay out of the way of those dwarves." Rose smiled and sat down.

"I know what you mean. One of them interrupted my Herbology class to give me one." Neville gave her a quick look that she couldn't decipher before looking back at his homework.

"Ya? What did it say?" He asked. Rose shrugged

"Roses are red, violets are blue, candy is sweet and so are you. It was really sweet, but I really wish I hadn't gotten it in the middle of class." She said, wrinkling her nose. "I really don't like being in the center of attention." She smiled over to Neville who smiled back his eyes twinkling in amusement.

"Well, at least what happened to you wasn't like what happened to Harry." He said. Rose looked at him curiously,

"Why? What happened?" She asked. He tried to stifle a laugh before saying

"Well, a dwarf stopped in-between classes by tripping him because Harry was trying to get away from him and sat down on his legs so he would stay put to recite the poem. And then Malfoy grabbed one of his books that looked like a diary before Harry disarmed him. It was all very dramatic." Rose stared at him opened mouthed before giggling.

"Oh no! and I bet I know exactly who sent him the valentine." She said, thinking of Ginny and how she had turned red when she said she thought it would be romantic to get or send a valentine. Neville just nodded before packing up his homework.

"Well, I have to go, I forgot my transfiguration book in my dorm and I need it to finish my homework." He said. Rose just smiled and stood up.

"I'll see you later then, I think I'm going to find Ginny." She said before they parted way's.

It took almost an hour before Roselyn found Ginny pacing anxiously near the lakes edge.

"What's wrong Ginny?" She asked. She raised an eyebrow when Ginny let out a startled shriek and spun around, looking at her wide eyed. Rose cocked her head as she studied the other red haired girl. "I'm sorry, didn't mean to scare you." She said. Ginny nodded, still looking pale and nervous about something.

"It's alright. I was just thinking and didn't hear you." She said. Rose nodded, frowning at her friend.

"Alright then, what were you thinking about?" She asked. Ginny shrugged her shoulders, but it was kind of a jerky movement.

"Oh nothing, just about earlier today." Rose nodded slowly.

"I see. Is it about Harry's valentine?" She asked. Ginny blushed scarlet and looked down at her feet. Rose smiled in slight amusement, glad to see her looing normal again. "Well, at least that will all blow over quickly. Want to hang out?" She asked. Ginny's eyes darted around nervously again before she nodded.

"Alright, don't have much else to do anyways." She said. Rose frowned, feeling slightly offended before shrugging it off.

"Alright then. Well, lets go for a walk, you look like you could use the fresh air." She suggested. Ginny nodded jerkily again and walked next to Rose as she started to make her way around the lake.

After the first ten minutes, Rose was happy to see that Ginny was starting to relax and have fun again. After two hours though the girls headed to the Great Hall for dinner before parting to go to their respective tables.

Rose listened half-heartedly to the other girls from her dorm gossip before heading off to bed. Half way there, she ran into Luna who had on a strange pair of glasses. She blinked and asked.

"What are the glasses for Luna?" Luna looked at her, or at least turned her head in Rose's direction and said.

"Oh, these help me to see Nargles. I was trying to find out information for Daddy's newest article in the Quibbler that he wants to do about them. You don't seem to have any right now, but I'm off to see if Professor Lockheart does, he usually does." She said. Rose grimaced at the thought of Lockheart.

"Well, good luck with that. I'm going to bed. Good night Luna." She said before being on her way again.

The next day, before she was even able to get down to the Great Hall, she was accosted by her brother who came running over and grabbed her arm and yanked her into an empty classroom, calling a "Just a minute Luna!" over their shoulders. When they were in the room Rose ripped her arm out of his grasp and frowned at him.

"What was that for?" She demanded. Harry made sure that no one could hear them before turning to her and saying,

"It was Hagrid who opened the chamber of secrets last time." He said softly to her. Rose's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Hagrid? How do you know? Did he tell you?" She asked urgently. Harry shook his head.

"No, I found this old diary that belonged to a Tom M. Riddle a couple of day's ago and I started to write in it and it wrote back! Then it pulled me into a type of memory and showed me!" He said. Rose frowned.

"You said it talked back to you? Where did you find it?" She asked him.

"Huh? Oh, Ron and I found it in Moaning Myrtles bathroom. Apparently someone tried to flush it down the toilet and it hit Myrtle who then flooded the bathroom which washed it back out. It took me some time to figure out how it work it but I finally noticed that it didn't have a bunch of ink that I spilled on it anymore and decided to try to write to it." Rose looked at him, startled.

"Harry! There was probably a reason someone tried to wash that book down the toilet! It might be dangerous." She said anxiously. Harry rolled his eyes.

"That's what Ron said, but nothing happened to me. And I did find out who opened the chamber last time." He pointed out.

"That's not the point Harry! What if it's something that affects you over time? Or what if Hagrid was framed? You should take it to Professor Dumbledore, Harry." She told him as she stomped her foot angrily. Harry frowned at her.

"I'm not going to keep using it! I don't write in diary's, that's a girly thing. And anyways, I don't need to use it anymore because I already found out what I needed to! Now Ron, Hermione and I just have to talk to Hagrid about it." Rose looked at him in disbelief.

"Talk to him about it? Well, good luck with that." She said shaking her head. "I'm going to Breakfast." She said before striding out the door. She grabbed Luna and practically dragged her down to the Great Hall.

"Are you alright Rose?" She asked. Rose hurumphed and sat down grumpily,

"I'm fine, but Harry's not going to be if he keeps being a prat." She said. They ate in silence for a little before Luna said,

"Well, at least we'll have Lockheart to take your mind of things today." Rose groaned

"Thanks for reminding me. I was almost able to purge him from my mind." She said before hitting her head on the table.


End file.
